- Sexual harassment: An International issue - 10.04.2003
Sexual harassment is a problem people face in practically every part of the world. About 85 percent of such cases involve women who are harassed by their superiors or, less frequently, by colleagues on the same or lower position.
Coinciding with International Women’s Day, South African Ambassador Sikose Mji organized a seminar entitled Sexual Harassment: International Perspective in Warsaw March 10. The seminar was designed to encourage an exchange of opinion on sexual harassment. It attracted nearly 40 women representing diplomatic missions of countries in which the problem has already been thoroughly discussed, accompanied by representatives of the Polish government and nongovernmental organizations, journalists and women involved in scientific work. Mji opened the conference by emphasizing that the main purpose of the seminar was to attempt to define the problem as precisely as possible. “We live at different latitudes but the problems afflicting us are the same everywhere,” said Mji in welcoming participants.
Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, Polish government commissioner for equal treatment of the sexes, presented the scope of interests and activity of her office and briefly discussed the frequency and scope of sexual harassment in Poland. According to Jaruga-Nowacka, the relatively low number of reported cases of harassment stems from the specific mentality of Polish women. Women in Poland underestimate improper behavior on the part of their coworkers and assume that it not worth the hassle. On the other hand, they are paralyzed by false shame and fear of the reaction of others in the workplace and at home. This is the wrong way to perceive the problem since, as Jaruga-Nowacka emphasized, “sexual harassment is not only the victim’s private matter.”
The first part of the discussion was chaired by Ewa Hancock, the Women’s Voice editor, and the second by Prof. Renata Siemienska, a sociologist from Warsaw University. The program included a discussion of procedures countering sexual harassment in state offices in South Africa, presented by ambassador Mji, an analysis of the behavior of actual and imagined victims of harassment, conducted by Sladjana Pantelic from the Dutch Embassy, and a speech by Magdalena Nelken-Zbik, representative of the Women’s Rights Center in Warsaw. However, the seminar also encouraged participants to engage in a lively discussion. Polish women at the seminar complained that Poland lacked a precise definition of behaviors that could be qualified as sexual harassment. They also mentioned the language difficulties encountered when trying to translate the term into Polish.
Participants concluded that Polish women failed to react to sexual harassment because of a lack of proper and effective legal regulations and the fear of losing their job. According to Nelken-Zbik, in order to change this situation, some women will have to throw their own good name onto the scale and risk rejection by their colleagues. Only then will it be possible to convince the public that women are not responsible for the improper behavior of men around them and that they are the victims. An issue that remained unresolved after the discussion ended was the establishment of a list of behaviors that could be defined as sexual harassment, since every woman has to estimate the seriousness of the situation herself. One of the criteria used in such situation is whether the given behavior, commentary or joke meets with acceptance or whether it makes the person concerned embarrassed and causes his or her discomfort. For one woman, sexual harassment may be constant repetition of lewd jokes and for another the boss’s persistent fawning with implied sexual innuendo.
