1
Sexual harassment of women now hate crime in the UK?
Interesting developments regarding gender relations in the UK ...
Should sexual harassment be a criminal offence?
It started with Harvey Weinstein, one of the biggest names in cinema, then went global with the #metoo Twitter hashtag before engulfing the UK's members of Parliament.
The sex scandal spanning Hollywood, Parliament and beyond has exposed a possible gap in UK legislation - sexual harassment is not actually a criminal offence in its own right.
The Equality Act currently covers sexual harassment in the workplace - but outside work, prosecutors must use different pieces of legislation, depending on the nature of the offence.
Critics say this leaves us without a proper definition of the types of behaviour that amount to sexual harassment - or clear boundaries.
It also makes it near impossible to get an accurate picture of the scale of the problem.
So, is it time to make sexual harassment a specific criminal offence?
"Of course sexual harassment should be criminalised," says Samantha Rennie, director of Rosa, a charity which supports initiatives for women and children.
Two-thirds of UK women have reportedly been sexually harassed so it's important that we have the law behind women, she says.
But Conservative MP Maria Miller, who chairs the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, has her doubts.
"It's a really difficult area. It's not an easy area of law," she says.
Society and Parliament would have to decide where the bar falls - what behaviours were acceptable and not acceptable, she explains.
Most parliamentarians and police would consider sexual harassment outside work "too big and too difficult an issue" to treat with the same zero-tolerance approach that we do, for example, race hate crimes, she says.
"That in itself is very telling - we have got a huge cultural problem here, and it needs to be tackled."
Sophie Walker, leader of the Women's Equality Party, is not convinced a "quick change in the law" would resolve low conviction rates around sexual harassment.
"People are rightly looking for a silver bullet," she says - but she believes that a fundamental change in the balance of power in everything from work and caring, to representation and rights is what is needed.
Is sexual harassment of a woman a hate crime?
No - not in most places.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, hate crimes fall into five categories - disability, race, religion, transgender identity and sexual orientation.
However police forces can create their own categories, depending on local concerns and problems.
Nottinghamshire has done just that - recording harassment as a misogynistic incident - and other areas are starting to follow suit.
Ms Miller says if this was taken up by other forces, it would be a straightforward way to record incidents and get an idea of the scale of sexual harassment.
Samantha Rennie says hate crimes are prosecuted when race, sexuality and other prejudices are apparent, so gender should be no different.
... and the article continues.
Also:
When does flirting become sexual harassment?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41665049
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Arduti
United States
Canada
Bookmarks