Two years have passed since Sofia Bekatorou’s bold revelation, which sparked many more reports of sexual assault and harassment, mainly in the sports and art worlds. It is now well known that sexual harassment is the most widespread form of gender violence. It is often socially tolerated and frequently goes unreported, but it remains deeply rooted in the victims’ consciousness, affecting their work and lives.
What has happened in Greece over these two years? How aware are we, as a society, of the crime of workplace sexual harassment? What new ways do we have to fight it, to support the victims and to punish perpetrators?
What is certain is that we have learned more about the issue:
From the survey carried out by the Koinoniko Polykentro of the Greek Civil Service Confederation (ADEDY) in 2022, we learned that:
In the public sector, sexual harassment persists despite a work environment that is safe in terms of risk of dismissal. More specifically:
- Harassment is associated with environments that favour corruption and are influenced by political-party or other types of connections and dependencies.
- The majority of women and men stated that they are aware of negative comments, hostile treatment or inappropriate behaviour in their workplace.
- Women who experienced some form of harassment reported that if people become aware of an incident of harassment, it is often downplayed, and if it remains hidden, it is known to only a few people in and outside their workplace.
- Women reported that threats of harassment result in psychological pressure, cultivation of daily anxiety, distress, physical and mental pain, as well as avoidance of work or a desire to transfer to another post or even resign.
- In most cases, when they reported an incident of harassment to high-ranking members of their department, it was either ignored or not substantially addressed, although the problem may have been acknowledged.
- The problem is not just that procedures are not implemented, but that they don’t even exist, since there is an almost total lack of protocols for dealing with harassment.
THE SURVEY: The purpose of the survey was to record the extent to which State employees are subjected to sexual and moral harassment at work, and how these behaviours can be addressed through specific measures. A sample survey was conducted of the general population of civil servants, along with an empirical study with interviews of female employees who had suffered sexual or moral harassment in the civil service.
The survey is available here: https://kpolykentro.gr/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SEXUAL-HARASSMENT-%CE%91%CE%A4-WORK_whole.pdf
From the two ActionAid surveys, we learned that:
- 85% of respondents have experienced sexual harassment at work, many systematically.
- 92% of these respondents suffered significant personal and professional impacts, including resignation, dismissal and limiting of career prospects.
- Half of the women surveyed have been harassed by a colleague, about 25% say the perpetrator was a customer, while in 20% of instances a manager/owner of the business was involved.
- 56% of cases of sexual harassment occur at the office.
- 56% of restaurant and tourism employees mentioned an incident involving another person.
- 55% of the women surveyed said that the persons present took no supportive action, while some respondents stated that the persons present behaved in a manner that encouraged the offender or downplayed their responsibility for the incident in relation to the responsibility of the woman who was the victim.
- Many men seem to acknowledge only serious forms of harassment (physical or sexual harassment), overlooking other forms (verbal or psychological), although these are often the first stages in harassment behaviours.
- The attitudes and reactions of witnesses to incidents of sexual harassment incidents are critical in terms of supporting victims and backing their decision to report the offenders.
- Most men seem to see sexual harassment as a personal matter of the women targeted rather than as a matter that concerns the work environment as a whole.
THE SURVEYS: Based on the ‘This is Not Part of Our Job’ survey (2020) it carried out before the issue was in the headlines, Action Aid continued with the new Safe at Work (2022) programme, which aims to combat sexual harassment through legal counselling and representation of victims, creation of educational materials and a public awareness campaign. As part of the programme, a survey of men was carried out.
The ‘This is Not Part of Our Job’’ survey is available here:
https://notpartofourjob.actionaid.gr/public/ActionAid_Harassment-Report.pdf
The survey titled ‘Men’s views on and attitudes to sexual harassment’ is available here:
https://www.actionaid.gr/sites/default/files/ActionAidHellas_SafeAtWork_Report_2022.pdf
Why all this?
Gender equality and sexual harassment are closely linked. Many forms of social dysfunction are associated with the intense patriarchal characteristics of Greek society (it is no coincidence that we are consistently ranked lowest in the European Gender Equality Index) – characteristics that pervade the way we think and not just the way we act. The unequal distribution of work, resources, time and care between genders and the different stereotypes about attitudes and behaviours of women and men create a foundation that accepts and tolerates sexual harassment.
How are we fighting this?
The International Labour Organization’s Convention No. 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work was ratified under Law 4808/21, but unfortunately it is incomplete. It was included along with other issues in the Labour Ministry’s Law (without taking into account previous laws and applicable EU definitions). It was mainly limited to the private sector, leaving specialised provisions for the public sector to a subsequent Ministerial Decision.[1]
However, no deeply entrenched social problem can be tackled solely through legal and institutional regulations, and especially when such a problem is clad in strong perceptions and attitudes. Suffice it to say, for example, that a man can and must express his sexual intentions to his female colleague or subordinate without her consent. Nor can any deep-seated social phenomenon be confronted without the institutional and legal regulations on repression and its punishment.
It is fortunate that, thanks to the pandemic, we are facing an improvement in the situation with regard to encouraging the reporting of sexual harassment by (albeit only a few) women who have suffered it. And that’s because there was a certain change in the way the complaints were ‘received’ by public political discourse and the mass media.
We used to say that in court the victim is raped once again. This can also happen during disciplinary prosecution of sexual harassment. The victim is at risk of being victimised once more and of being incriminated when she accuses her supervisor, when the local Sworn Administrative Inquiry determines that the complaint was made for intraprofessional revenge.
In any case, what’s needed is a comprehensive response policy that includes the laws on reporting and punishment (which are applied, naturally), but this also needs to be accompanied by awareness-raising actions for women and men, specific complaint procedures, immediate administrative actions to distance the perpetrators from the victims, support for victims, counselling and guidance on their rights and, of course, protection of witnesses. In other words, every public and private body (Ministry, University, Municipality, Organisation, Enterprise, etc.) should design a Protocol for combating sexual harassment in their workplace, with zero tolerance specifications and clear procedures for reporting and punishing perpetrators. What are the first such actions?
Things really are moving ahead!
In the Municipality of Athens, the Municipal Council unanimously passed (Α.Δ.Σ. 89/09-03-2021), an integrated programme, titled ‘Zero Tolerance’ (proposed by Pavlos Geroulanos’ party), for preventing and dealing with sexual harassment in the Municipality – by and against employees, elected representatives, and residents who come to municipal spaces. The programme was subsequently adopted by other municipalities in Greece.
Recent cases of sexual harassment – mainly teaching staff harassing female students – have been made public at Greek universities, sparking the elaboration of protocols for how Gender Equality Committees should deal with complaints. Such protocols are currently being drawn up at all of Greece’s universities and research centres, as they are also a prerequisite for research funding from Horizon Europe.
In the civil society sector, the #MeNow_MeToo initiative https://menowmetoo.gr/, launched by the European Network Against Violence and Sofia Bekatorou, aims to ‘connect’ victims who were abused in the same context and/or by the same perpetrator, as well as to exert pressure to improve the system of protection and access to justice for victims.
Nevertheless, if the government does not immediately improve the institutional framework and capitalise on the experience of women’s organizations that, in accordance with European legislation, can represent the victims, the metoo movement’s encouragement of victims to report incidents may go to waste. And this is due to frustration with ineffective disciplinary procedures and the frequent re-victimisation of victims during investigation, referral and trial, as if sexual harassment were an offence like others that do not involve personal and work dependencies and abuse of power.
To ensure that the progress made to date is not wasted, we all need to realise that zero tolerance does not concern just laws and protocols of organisations. It also concerns us – when we witness sexual harassment of and pressure on our colleagues or our students and, instead of reacting immediately and effectively, we simply remain silent.
[1] For a thorough analysis of the legal framework, see the chapter entitled ‘Gender Violence against Women at Work as Forms of Gender Violence on the occasion of International Labour Convention 190’, by Panagiota Petroglou, in the collective volume ‘Gender Violence – Violence against Women’, edited by Dina Vaiou, Georgia Petraki, Maria Stratigaki (Alexandria editions) https://alexandria-publ.gr/shop/emfili-via-via-kata-ton-ginekon/.
