Sexual Harassment In Central And Eastern Europe - Brief Article

"To the shock of many Czechs, a recent study commissioned by the daily Lidove Noviny indicated that almost half of the country's working women have been subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace.

Reports from other post-Communist countries indicate that sexual harassment, though seldom identified as such, is widespread. The study found that 45 percent of Czech women had been sexually harassed, many of them repeatedly. Women's rights advocates said that the real figures are probably even higher.

'Sexual harassment is something like folklore in the Czech Republic,' said Lenka Simerska, a sociologist at the Gender Studies Center in Prague[ldots]The concept of sexual harassment is widely perceived as a Western plague that threatens to spoil 'natural' relations between men and women.

The few lawsuits reported in Central Europe throughout the 1990's showed that women have a very spare legal arsenal with which to fight unwelcome advances from their colleagues.

Since none of the Central European countries have codified sexual harassment as a criminal offense, victims usually sue for violation of the labor code, which provides a more vaguely defined right to a harmless working environment.

Centrum Prow Kobiet, the women's rights center in Poland, has counseled dozens of sexual harassment victims, but only one of them could claim any sort of legal success. The harassed woman, an employee of a large multinational corporation, won a payment equal to a year's salary as compensation, but she was still forced to leave her job.

'This one was lucky, because the company was international and was concerned about its reputation,' said Eleonora Zielinska, a law professor from Warsaw. 'But usually the victims are entitled only to three months' pay if they agree to leave the job.'

The situation is similar in Hungary. 'Sexuality was taboo in Hungary during socialism,' said Judit Sandor, the head of the gender studies department at the Central European University in Budapest. 'People don't feel comfortable interpreting these problems. And that includes judges, who are generally unfavorable to women.' Very few women in Hungary dare to go public with their reports of harassment, she said, because they fear a backlash from the society.

Ten years after the fall of Communism, some things are gradually changing. Some post-Communist countries have begun the process of passing laws to combat sexual harassment in order to harmonize their legislation with laws in the European Union, which all aspire to join.

Slovenia hopes to pass a law sometime in the spring, while the Czech government just sent a draft law for its first reading in Parliament. The task still lies ahead for Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, not to mention Balkan countries further back in the line to join the European Union.

Legal protection will not immediately change the deeply rooted attitudes and social climate in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, where debates about gender issues are almost nonexistent. Although almost all women work and bring home income, they are still expected to take care of the household and child-rearing. And the few who dare to speak out can not expect any sympathy from those around them."