News stories about sexual harassment are usually the headlines—rare, often overlooked, and quickly forgotten. If their lives are longer, thanks to social networks, the comments turn them into an exclusion zone – the emphasis migrates to the “dubious” behavior of the victim, and all sorts of adjectives, usually favorable, are attached to the aggressor , but absolutely irrelevant to the specific situation of harassment. Thus, after a path that invariably ends in a dead end, the topic of sexual harassment disappears from the public radar, and with it the confidence of the victims that it makes sense to speak.
Although cases of sexual harassment at work are the order of the day in Moldova, according to a study employees do not know how to identify forms of sexual harassment, or do not report them. On the other hand, non-reporting is not only caused by lack of knowledge, but also by many other factors – shame, fear of losing work, lack of a support group, etc.
In this sense, the official reaction of the Court of Accounts in the case of Tatiana Vozian vs. Marian Lupu, is symbolic. A certain institution, which is the Court of Accounts, takes an accusatory position, crushing from the start, through its statements, the alleged victim of the alleged harassment. “(…) slanders and insinuations, which denigrate the image of the person with public dignity and harm the image of the institution and the entire collective”. That’s how much a state machine was able to face the vulnerability of a man.
Advertisement About 60% of abused employees did not report their experiences and did not seek help. The reluctance to report cases of sexual harassment is often determined by the low level of trust in the competent bodies, which is why a good part of the people who faced such situations preferred to remedy it individually. At the same time, social pressure, fear of blame are additional factors that discourage victims from speaking/reporting the cases they have faced.
Author: Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Between Perceptions and Reality
We have a very rudimentary consent culture. This profound lack of understanding of where the admissible passes and where it turns into the inadmissible in human relations has left us with a stain where we should see the victim. Moreover, we like to be on the side of the aggressor, even if we hardly or not admit it. In our eyes he is stronger. And, of course, a householder, a good father, a professional. How many socially accepted things we want to associate ourselves with.
Every fifth woman in Moldova faces some subtle forms of sexual harassment at work, and four out of 100 face serious forms of harassment. These are figures from which we should have nowhere to hide. However, we find
