Bridgetown - Barbados' Sexual Harassment Act was proclaimed in December 2017, it is formally known as the Employment Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Act (ESHA) 2017 . Under the Act, every employer must ensure that within six months of its commencement, they provide a clearly articulated, written policy statement against sexual harassment in the workplace.
Acting Chief Labour Officer (CLO), Victor Felix, explained the provisions in the Act in greater detail, during an interview with the Barbados Government Information Service.
The top labour official stated that sexual harassment, under the legislation, included "the use of sexually suggestive words, comments, jokes, gestures or actions that annoy, alarm or abuse a person". Also included, he pointed out, were "the initiation of unwanted physical contact, unwelcome sexual advances or requests".
"The Sexual Harassment Act provides a framework for the reporting and lodging of complaints; and provides for the investigation, hearing and determination of sexual harassment complaints. The Act also provides for strict confidentiality, except to the extent necessary for the purposes of the Act," he noted.
Contravention of the Employment Sexual Harassment (Prevention) Act will result in the imposition of penalties.
"The steps employees can take if they experience sexual harassment in the workplace, such as peer-on-peer harassment, are to complain to your supervisor or management to resolve the issue. If you are not satisfied with the internal resolution, then you can approach the Chief Labour Officer on the matter. If the sexual harassment is against the chief executive officer of the organisation, then you may want to approach the CLO from the very outset.
"After the Chief Labour Officer has investigated and sought to bring a resolution to the matter, but is not satisfied that they have brought a resolution that is satisfactory, then the matter will go on to the Employment Rights Tribunal for a resolution," he explained.
Source: BGIS
Add Comment
This policy contains information about your privacy. By posting, you are declaring that you understand this policy:
- Your name, rating, website address, town, country, state and comment will be publicly displayed if entered.
- Aside from the data entered into these form fields, other stored data about your comment will include:
- Your IP address (not displayed)
- The time/date of your submission (displayed)
- Your email address will not be shared. It is collected for only two reasons:
- Administrative purposes, should a need to contact you arise.
- To inform you of new comments, should you subscribe to receive notifications.
- A cookie may be set on your computer. This is used to remember your inputs. It will expire by itself.
This policy is subject to change at any time and without notice.
These terms and conditions contain rules about posting comments. By submitting a comment, you are declaring that you agree with these rules:
- Although the administrator will attempt to moderate comments, it is impossible for every comment to have been moderated at any given time.
- You acknowledge that all comments express the views and opinions of the original author and not those of the administrator.
- You agree not to post any material which is knowingly false, obscene, hateful, threatening, harassing or invasive of a person's privacy.
- The administrator has the right to edit, move or remove any comment for any reason and without notice.
Failure to comply with these rules may result in being banned from submitting further comments.
These terms and conditions are subject to change at any time and without notice.
Comments