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The law for the protection against sexual harassment in the workplace is found to have only a limited impact in personnel policies and in the courts, according to a study from the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. The Law for the protection of employees against sexual harassment in the workplace became effective on 1 September 1994. The study is based on a representative survey in 1,000 companies/public agencies, on an analysis of legislation related to the law, and on interviews with actors at company level and with legal practitioners. It covers the time span of 1994 to 2002.
On average, 5.97 incidents of sexual harassment have been recorded by personnel managers in each workplace. It is estimated that, in one million sites, around 300,000 employees (1.2%) were affected. In addition, a high number of unrecorded cases is assumed. The data, therefore, cannot describe the real extent of sexual harassment. In 4.8% of workplaces, officially known cases were reported. A further 0.6% of sites noted rumours of cases, and assumed cases were found in 1.5% of sites. Sectors with the highest rates of sexual harassment (about 8%) are transport, banking and insurance business, the health sector and other services.
Some 90.5% of victims of sexual harassment are female and 13.9% are male. Harassers are predominantly men (90%). In 14.9% of cases, the harasser was a direct supervisor; in 9.5% of cases, he/she was a more senior supervisor; and, in 8.5% of cases, the harasser was a person external to the company (client, guest, delivery person).
Female personnel managers report figures that are more than double those reported by male personnel managers (7.4% compared with 3.3%). The assumption in the report is that female personnel managers received more information on cases of sexual harassment, are more sensitive to the issue, and more often investigate the incident reported to them.
The overall impression is that most actors in the companies and in the courts have little knowledge regarding the law. Furthermore, 41.9% of the trade union legal protection offices reported that the law is unknown to them.
Only in 2.3% of the companies did enactment of the law have any direct impact on the personnel management. Just 14.9% of the companies had informed their workforce about the law. Protective measures had been taken in 9.8% of the companies. Procedural rules are scarce, and only 2.3% of responsible personnel managers consider that there is need for further training of the workforce on the issue.
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