“No one’s salary includes the fact that they have to endure sexual harassment at work,” stated Mária Hercegh, head of the Women’s Division of the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation, at the press conference organized on Monday, the World Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. At the event, the research conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in six countries was presented Sexual harassment and violence in the workplace they graduated with a title. The questionnaire was filled out online by 759 people from Hungary, and six in-depth interviews and a round table discussion took place within the framework of the project. The importance of the research is that violence against women is a phenomenon that affects all age groups and social strata – pointed out Edit Németh, head of the Hungarian office of FES.
According to WHO estimates, every third woman worldwide is a victim of physical or sexual violence at least once in her life. Based on the 2014 report of the European Fundamental Rights Agency, 33 percent of women over the age of 15 in the EU have experienced this.
“Almost two-thirds of the Hungarian respondents, 64 percent, were women. In the age distribution, surprisingly, only 4 percent were under the age of 30, almost 50 percent were between the ages of 31 and 50, and 45 percent were over 51 years of age who answered the 38 questions asked,” researcher Andrea Sebestyén explained the domestic results. ,The fact that more than 50 percent of respondents reported that they had never experienced such indicates that sexual harassment cannot be said to be common in Hungarian workplaces. According to only 1.81 percent of respondents, it is common, while more than 30 percent of respondents could not judge the prevalence of sexual harassment in their workplace. However, there is no reason to be satisfied , because on the one hand, the latency is still huge in the case of problems of this kind, and on the other hand, the questionnaire cannot be considered representative. At the same time, the research provides important information about individual experiences.”
The researcher pointed out that the most frequently mentioned forms of sexual harassment are unwanted, embarrassing stares, sexist jokes, unsolicited comments with a sexual content (roughly 14 percent), as well as unwanted physical contact and proximity (9 percent).
Many of the respondents described that verbal sexual harassment is quite common in the country and it is up to the leader how much he tolerates it.
Typically, 73 percent of the perpetrators of harassment are men,
however, there are also a good number of victims, which shows that protection must be provided to everyone in a workplace community, regardless of gender.
What is the saddest experience is that more than 42 percent of the victims did not take any action against the harassment. Almost every second silent person involved said that they did not consider the situation serious enough, and the same number of people thought that there would be no consequences if they “made a case” out of it anyway. Moreover, many were afraid that if they reported the case, it would have negative consequences for them. Besides
it is very common that they don’t even know who to contact at the company if they experience sexual harassment.
The research came to the conclusion that no serious sanctions were imposed even in those cases where the victims took the matter to an official path. This may also be due to the fact that the legal regulations in Hungary are neither developed nor clear, nor do individual companies have adequate mechanisms to deal with such cases.
“Hungary has not ratified the Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence – ed.), nor does it even deal with it,” pointed out Mária Hercegh. “Trade unions are often accused of wanting more legislation. I’m not shouting for more legislation, but the lack of regulation in this area leads to the chaos we live in now.
Source: nepszava.hu
