About 46 percent of people feel that company attitudes toward preventing sexual harassment are passive, while 60 percent say that training exercises are not effective, a Modern Women’s Foundation poll released yesterday found.
The foundation released the results two years after the passage of amendments that aimed to address sexual harassment, including incidents in the workplace.
Conducted at the beginning of the year, the poll received 232 valid responses, of which 70 percent were from women.
Photo: Yang Yuan-ting, Taipei Times
Sixty percent worked in small to medium-sized enterprises, while the remaining 40 percent worked in large corporations.
About 96 percent of the respondents said that companies should focus on preventing sexual harassment, foundation employee Huang Chuan-hsin (黃傳馨) said.
The poll showed that while more than 70 percent said they knew of channels to report sexual harassment, trainings only lasted 20 minutes, or multiple issues were covered in one session.
Of those respondents, 60 percent said the training was not effective.
About 32.8 percent said they had been sexually harassed in the workplace, 86.8 percent of whom were women, Huang said.
One-quarter of respondents who had experienced sexual harassment said company reactions were passive, Huang said, adding that only 40 percent reported the incidents.
Of those who reported the incidents, 54.8 percent said the company did not handle the issues appropriately, citing flawed investigations, passive attitudes, dismissive behavior and limited professionalism, Huang said.
More than 40 percent of respondents who had experienced sexual harassment at work said company management and other personnel should be more professional about the issue, while 26 percent said the companies should hire professional third-parties to handle the complaints.
Companies should hold sexual harassment prevention courses for at least one hour and take measures to increase the professionalism of management, Huang said.
Modern Women’s Foundation president Jennifer Wang (王如玄) said the government should help by increasing consultation and outreach, investigating companies’ compliance and actions in such offenses, and making relevant statistics more transparent.
The government should also investigate incidents covered by the media and fine the companies involved, Wang said.
Wang cited an incident in which the foundation submitted a letter to the Taipei Department of Social Affairs demanding action regarding cafe owner Hsu Wei-lung (徐維隆), who was detained last year for installing hidden cameras in the cafe’s restrooms.
Hsu was ultimately released on bail of NT$80,000 and has recently opened another cafe under a new name.
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