Sexual assault in the work place often involves senior officials forcing their subordinates to comply using their power and position as an advantage. There has been recent news of a female flight attendant from Eva Airlines who came forward regarding a male pilot's inappropriate advances. The pilot has reportedly been punished for his actions.
However, if the allegations are true, do the pilot's actions correspond to the definition of workplace harassment in the Gender Equality in Employment Act? If so, the employer must immediately take actions to promptly and effectively rectify as well as make up for the situation.
In order to conclude whether an action constitutes workplace harassment, one must first determine whether the action has taken place on the job and/or whether the perpetrator is the superior or hirer of the victim. If at least one of the above checks out, then the victim may submit an oral or written complaint to the employer in order to report the incident. The employer subsequently must take immediate actions to rectify the situation.
On the contrary, if the crime did not occur on the job and was not committed by a superior/hirer, it would be a regular sexual assault incident and is not eligible to be dealt with using the Gender Equality in Employment Act. For instance, if a doctor sexually harasses a patient, since the patient is neither an employee at the hospital nor a job seeker, this can only be pursued through a civil or criminal suit. The Sexual Harassment Prevention Act is applicable to said incident and the victim may submit an oral or written report to relevant authorities within a year of the occurrence of the incident.
In the case of the Eva Airlines employees, the flight attendant was sexually harassed by the pilot at the hotel, not on the job. Nor is the pilot the superior or hirer of the flight attendant. Hence this case may not be tried using the Gender Equality in Employment Act and only the regular Sexual Harassment Prevention Act may be applied.
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