The Law for the Prevention of sexual harassment defines six behaviors that constitute sexual harassment:
1. Blackmail: Threatening a person that they will be harmed unless they perform a sexual act.
For example: "If you break up with me, I'll send people nude pictures I took of you."
2. Indecent Act: An act performed without consent for the purpose of sexual arousal, satisfaction, or humiliation. The act can be performed on the perpetrator's own body or on someone else's body.
For example: inappropriate touching, kissing, hugging, exposing intimate parts.
3. Repeated sexual suggestions directed at someone who has shown that they are not interested.
For example: repeated invitations to go on a date to someone who has shown that they are uninterested.
4. Repeated sexual remarks directed at someone who has shown they are not interested.
For example: "That shirt really shows off your chest," "Your lips just beg for a kiss," intrusive questions about sexual habits, sharing intimate stories.
Please note!
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A lack of interest in suggestions or remarks can be shown through words or behavior, as long as there is no reasonable doubt about the meaning of the behavior.
For example: leaving the room demonstratively, turning away, obvious evasion, statements showing lack of interest. -
When there is a relationship of authority or dependency, such as in teacher-student or supervisor-employee relationships, there is no need to show explicit disinterest for the suggestions or remarks to be considered harassment.
5. Humiliating or demeaning references to someone's gender or sexuality, including their sexual orientation.
For example: "Only normal people come in here, not all those gays," "What does it matter how she is as a researcher, with a body like that, she probably has ways to get ahead."
6. Publicizing of photographs, recordings, or videos of a sexual nature without the consent of the person depicted, in circumstances where the publication could humiliate or degrade them.
For example: A worker receives a sexual or revealing picture of a colleague and then shares it with the rest of the lab members.
In addition to these behaviors, case law has added another type of harassing behavior:
Creating a hostile environment by engaging in the topic of sex, sexuality, and gender in a way that makes the environment uncomfortable for those present ("environmental harassment"). This type of harassment does not have to be directed at a specific individual.
For example: A lecturer giving unnecessary sexual examples in class, an employee telling crude jokes in a department meeting.
Retaliation based on sexual harassment: Any type of harm that arises from sexual harassment or a complaint or lawsuit filed regarding sexual harassment. Since retaliation is often part of the dynamics surrounding sexual harassment, the law prohibiting sexual harassment addresses it severely.
For example: After a teaching assistant is removed from their position due to a complaint regarding sexual harassment, students who liked him remove the student who filed the complaint from the class WhatsApp group.