Women are more likely to suffer sexual harassment at work than men. To this statement of apparent obviousness, he has put data Eurofound, a dependent agency of the European Union in charge of studying working conditions in the 27 member states and how to improve them. Specifically, there are three times as many female workers who suffer some type of sexual violence or micro machismo during his workday than their male counterparts. And, by sector, the employees of the sector sanitary They are the most susceptible to suffer some type of sexual harassment during their professional performance.
The Eurofound study is based on the European Working Conditions Telephone Survey, a survey prepared on the basis of 70,000 interviews with people from 36 countries of the ‘Old Continent’. And the main conclusion that the analysis published this week leaves is that they are transversally more vulnerable to the mistreatment in the work centers they do, either by their superiors, by their colleagues or by people outside the company or entity for which they work. Also, to younger is the woman, the more likely she is to suffer some kind of hostile behavior.
Being subjected to labor and/or sexual harassment at work has a direct impact on the mental health of the assaulted Stress, anxiety, insomnia, headache, intestinal discomfort or skin reactions are some of the symptoms that he lists Ariadna Vila, expert in addressing gender violence and member of the governing board of the Col•legi Oficial de Psicòlogia de Catalunya. “The pressure on the victim is very high and affects all aspects of her life, both personal and professional,” she says.
According to Eurofound data, victims of hostile behavior at work are around three times more likely to experience physical exhaustion and emotional and nearly twice as likely to suffer anxiety or be at risk of depression than a person who does not suffer from it.
Mandatory protocol in all companies
All companies, according to regulations approved in 2007regardless of their size, have the obligation to have a protocol against sexual assault. The problem, as explained by the secretary of equality and training of the UGT of Catalonia, Eva Gajardo, is that not all companies comply with this formal obligation and lacks transparency and reliability in many companies. According to consultant and ETT data Adeccohalf of the companies do not have a protocol of this type.
“Unfortunately, the most common thing is that the assaulted woman ends up taking the low or leaving the company and that the aggressor takes a minor offense or not even that”, he affirms. “Unlike other countries, where when a case of this type occurs, the companies are withering with the dismissal and they use it as an example so that nothing similar happens again, here it is covered. We see how aggressors are fired on the pretext of low productivity and nothing is explained,” she adds.
One of the keys for the prevention and action mechanisms against bullying at work to work is that it is known by everyone and the steps to apply it are clear, according to Vilà, from the Col•legi de Psicòlogia. “It is vital that the person attacked knows who to contact to activate the protocol and that this reference person is of trust and have one training adequate to know how to act & rdquor ;, he explains. “Victims have to feel safe when reporting, because otherwise what is achieved is stigmatize them more and increase the pressure on them,” he adds.
To ensure both that traceability As well as ensuring that all employees are aware of what hostile behavior is -whether they suffer it, witness it, or carry it out-, Vilà and Gajardo insist that it is essential that the protocols be agreed upon between management and workers. And that these are not a unilateral initiative of the former, which can serve to avoid a fine before a Labor inspection, but not to really prevent attacks. In addition, poorly managed aggression can increase the distrust within the workforce, lower its performance and, if disclosed, damage the company’s corporate image.
The more public exposure, the more aggressions
Although gender inequalities have a transversal impact, workers are not equally vulnerable in all sectors. The Eurofound report shows that a telephone operator does not have the same risk of being raped as a maid harassed by a customer when he comes in to clean her room. According to his data, the 5.7% of toilets have suffered sexual harassment during the last year, being the group that suffers the most from this type of abuse, coinciding with its high feminization.
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“What a young woman may have to put up with at the counter in a hospital or primary care center is chilling“, affirms the coordinator of the working group against sexist violence of the Catalan Society of Family and Community Medicine (Camfic), Pilar Babi. “If you go in to attend to a home You don’t know what you can find. Most of the time it will be someone who says ‘Good morning doctor, do you want a coffee?’. But other times not and there you are totally defenseless,” she adds.
It is also affiliated with Metges of Catalonia considers that in the last decade there has been a change within the institutions and they “have become more aware and take measures& rdquor; to avoid subjecting the healthcare community to situations such as those described above. “The response has to be forceful and the training of professionals in this sense is essential. We have to put ourselves in the worst, assume that this will happen, that professionals must have tools to recognize these behaviors and try to redirect them. And always that cannot be done, means to repair the damage”, he concludes.