Spread of Sexual Harassment, its Attributes, Effects, and Proposed Policy

Sexual Harassment
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Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment has been defined numerous times, but all the definitions share the same idea. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, sexual harassment is any "uninvited and unwelcoming verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature especially by a person in authority toward a subordinate (as an employee or student)." The Australian Human Rights Commission defines it as "an unwanted or unwelcoming sexual behavior, which makes a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated." The World Health Organization (WHO) defines it as "any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic or otherwise directed against a person's sexuality using coercion, by any individual regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work." The idea that all definitions have including the two above is that sexual harassment involves directing one's sexual desires towards a person of either the same or the opposite sex without mutual consent. However, WHO's definition goes further and even makes it clearer that sexual harassment can happen anywhere and is not limited to either workplaces or homes. No one is safe from sexual harassment. According to Spector, Zhou, and Che (2014), cases of this malaise have spread to even hospitals and nurses have been the latest victims. The three researchers discovered that sexual harassment is spreading and if not curtailed, it could spread to even the most revered offices.
Sexual harassment is widespread and coupled with the fact that numerous cases go unreported; it continues to be a thorn in many countries. According to Boghani (2015), "nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men have been raped in their lifetime." This is incredibly shocking and troubling because by doing the simple math involved, one gathers that there are millions of people who have undergone a form of sexual harassment. However, various reports suggest that victims of sexual harassment do not always report these cases. For example, according to the United States Department of Justice (USDJ) (2012), from 2006 to 2010, sexual assault and rape crimes were among the highest regarding unreported crimes in the United States with 65%. As per the USDJ, many victims fail to report as a result of "fear of reprisal" and this means that many suffer in silence.
The attributes of sexual harassment are not as visible as many people think. There are numerous cases where the victims are not even aware that they are sexually harassed and only come to realize later. First of all sexual harassment could be verbal, physical, as well as non-verbal. Some of the things to look out for include unwanted sexual jokes, remarks or questions, making suggestive sexual gestures with one’s body parts, attempted rape or sexual assault, sending one’s nude pictures or videos to other people etc. There are indeed many attributes of sexual harassment, and people need to be well informed about...