WILLEMSTAD - The number of employees who suffer from sexual harassment in the workplace has risen, according to the About Workplace Harassment report.
The report was presented to opposition party PAR yesterday. This shows that in 2017, 33 percent of the working population in Curaçao was a victim of regular physical sexual harassment in the workplace. This increased by 31 percent to 64 percent in 2018.
74 percent of the workforce has sometimes, often or very often suffered from unwanted sexual attention from a supervisor or colleague in the past 12 months. 84 percent say they are bothered by people from outside work. For 37 percent, the work has become emotionally much heavier as a result.
"You could conclude that hardly anyone goes to work without problems," said researcher of the report Karin Bosman. A high workload and a lot of work stress can lead to little room to behave positively, Bosman concludes.
In order to tackle this problem, a good policy must be drawn up and communication in the workplace must be improved, says Bosman.
At the initiative of the PAR, a law is being drawn up to criminalize undesirable behavior and sexual intimidation in the workplace.