Even working from home does not solve the problem of sexual harassment
2024-09-13 13:12:30
TiranaPost
Working from home has not solved the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, on the contrary, it has increased it.
Since the pandemic, remote work has taken off and many companies have chosen to continue working from home.
A survey conducted by the charity Rights of Women found that many women were also harassed on Zoom during online meetings.
According to the Women's Rights Report, almost half of women who reported sexual harassment in the workplace said such incidents occurred while working remotely. 23% of those interviewed have noticed an increase in harassment. since they started working from home.
Harassment is not limited to spam comments. Further legal research conducted by Slater and Gordon has highlighted how women are often victims of inappropriate demands from their employers, such as to 'look sexy' during video calls, with the aim of attracting clients. These sexualizing demands have left many women feeling humiliated and demoralized, an experience shared by 40% of the 2,000 women interviewed.
Deeba Syed, senior legal officer at Women's Rights, points out how working from home, rather than breaking the cycle of abuse, has simply provided abusers with a new tool to continue their actions. Digital communication platforms, such as WhatsApp, email and social media, have become new tools for committing sexual harassment, which in some cases was present in physical workplaces.
Although Zoom has adopted several security measures to combat these behaviors, such as the ability to report and remove annoying participants and the use of virtual backgrounds to protect user privacy, the problem remains complex.
