Toolkit tackles sexual harassment

As the CBI employers’ body became the latest organisation to face allegations of serious sexual misconduct within its ranks, Wales TUC launched its Sexual harassment in the workplace toolkit.

Co-authored by Welsh Women’s Aid, it includes information and support to help workers identify workplace sexual harassment, hold employers to account to prevent sexual harassment from happening in workplaces and campaign for a zero tolerance approach to workplace sexual harassment.

Welsh Women’s Aid’s 2021 No grey arearesearch found that four out of five women in Wales have experienced some form of sexual harassment at work, suggesting “epidemic levels of misogyny and sexism being tolerated within workplaces”.

Wales TUC general secretary Shavanah Taj commented: “Sexual harassment is part of a wider, relentless culture of sexual violence and misogyny.” Last month, in response to reports in The Telegraph newspaper that ministers will backtrack on promises to strengthen sexual harassment laws at work, the TUC said women are experiencing sexual harassment and abuse on “an industrial scale”.

It would be “utterly shameful” if the government allows the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill to fall, it added.

The Private Member’s Bill has been progressing through Parliament with government support and had its second reading in the House of Lords in March.