In the 1970s, "sexual harassment", as a professional legal term, entered the modern legal system and gradually became the topic of people's attention and the object of government's attention. Sexual harassment is an ancient and realistic social problem, which includes both moral considerations and legal constraints. In China today, with the continuous improvement of economic level, the frequency of sexual harassment incidents is also increasing. However, this kind of sexual harassment incident, which is against morality and law, has brought confusion about the positioning of the legal bottom line regulating people's moral behavior.
"Sexual harassment" is essentially a kind of tort, not gender discrimination. If sexual harassment is understood as a kind of gender discrimination, then sexual harassment by women against men means that women discriminate against men, and same-sex sexual harassment means that the perpetrator discriminates against the same sex, which is obviously unreasonable. In short, sexual harassment is the behavior of people who are interested in or have certain attraction to the actor because of his low moral quality. Although there are different ways of sexual harassment, what they violate is the personality rights of others. Every citizen has the right to be free from sexual harassment according to law, no matter whether the harassment is from the opposite sex or the same sex.
At the beginning of December 2016, the "sexual harassment gate" incident of Minsheng Bank caused a great stir. Guan, deputy general manager of Beijing Branch of China Minsheng Bank, repeatedly harassed Ms. Wang, an employee of the bank, through wechat, and asked her to go to the hotel for "tea" and "meet and chat". As the boss of Ms. Wang, in the past two years, Guan repeatedly made excessive demands on her for the convenience of her position, and the opportunity of Ms. Wang to become a regular worker was affected. Ms. Wang complained to her superiors for many times without success. She could not bear the harassment and threats of Guan. In a fit of anger, she sent a screenshot of her wechat with Guan to the internal group of the bank, which revealed Guan's ugly behavior. After the incident, the person in charge of the bank made a reply, which was briefly summarized as three points: it was true that the female employee was harassed, but she was a temporary worker; Wechat harassment is not sexual harassment; We have criticized him and deducted the bonus. Once this reply was made, it not only failed to solve the problem, but also pushed Minsheng Bank to the forefront of the storm. Some netizens sarcastically said that Apple redefined mobile phones and Minsheng Bank redefined sexual harassment. Under the pressure of public opinion, the incident ended with the dismissal of Guan from Minsheng Bank. It can be seen that this incident is actually a matter of social public opinion pushing things forward. The aggressor turned a blind eye to it, even tried to evade responsibility and did not pursue it.
In contrast, what would happen if sexual harassment occurred in the United States? In July 2015, the Chinese boss of a financial company on Wall Street in the United States was finally sentenced by the Manhattan court of the United States to $18 million (about 120 million yuan) for sexual harassment of female subordinates. In July this year, after the boss of "21st Century Fox" in the United States was reported by female employees for sexual harassment, not only did he lose his job, but the company that was afraid of causing greater legal trouble quickly reached a "pre court settlement" with the victim, compensated her a huge sum of $20 million (about 130 million yuan), and made a public apology. In October this year, the Pittsburgh court of the United States sentenced a local state university to pay 500000 US dollars (about 3.44 million yuan) to the injured female faculty members, including 230000 US dollars for mental loss, 220000 US dollars for lawyers and 50000 US dollars for other related expenses. The above-mentioned sky high compensation has made many American media sigh that it will make many companies that also have sexual harassment problems and their scum male executives "think twice before acting".
In contrast, it is sad that China's legislation on anti sexual harassment is still weak, and China's laws do not support the high amount of "punitive damages" such as those in the United States. Therefore, if we want to get compensation under the help of the law and punish the units involved in such incidents in China, it is only a fantasy at present. Ms. Wang had no choice but to use the power of the media and public opinion to correct her name, and she could not get any compensation or even lost her job.
The continuous occurrence of sexual harassment makes us have to pay attention to and strengthen the protection and restraint at the legal level. However, at present, the judicial field of our country still faces a series of difficulties. China only passed and promulgated the law on the protection of women's rights and interests in 2005, and only Article 40 states that sexual harassment of women is prohibited. Women victims have the right to complain to their units and relevant organs. However, even the only legal provisions do not specify which organ should be found, how to exercise rights, and what kind of protection and compensation can be obtained. This has led to mutual prevarication and evasion of responsibilities among organs and units, and the lack of supervision by higher-level specialized organs. In fact, this law can not be effectively implemented. At present, the embarrassing situation is that sexual harassment is not enough for criminal crimes, and it is difficult for civil cases to be filed for proof, and there is a lack of restriction and supervision of relevant laws and regulations to require the unit to compensate, the offender to apologize and compensate. Another embarrassing problem is that even if the three hurdles of filing a case, obtaining evidence and claiming compensation have been overcome, the amount of compensation that the victim can receive is pitifully small compared with similar cases in the United States. Six years ago, a female employee of a Japanese enterprise in Guangdong successfully won the Japanese boss who had sexually harassed her for two years, and won the court's judgment to pay her compensation. At that time, the case was regarded by the legal circles as a "progress" in China's "anti sexual harassment" case. What is the amount of compensation? Only 3000 yuan. Compared with the amount of compensation in the United States, the tort cost paid by sexual harassment in China is really small and chilling.
The difficulty of proving evidence has always been an important reason why sexual harassment cases are excluded from justice. Sexual harassment is generally in a secret state, and in most cases, it is a one-to-one relationship or a relatively hidden corner in public places, which is difficult for others to perceive. This undoubtedly makes it difficult for the victim to provide evidence in the litigation stage.
As mentioned above, the legal protection of sexual harassment in China is still very weak, the regulatory system is not perfect, the subject of responsibility is not clear, and the punishment is not obvious. Various reasons have led to the endless occurrence of sexual harassment incidents, and the legitimate rights and interests of victims are not effectively protected. It should be pointed out that the problem of sexual harassment is closely related to traditional social concepts and social structures. The existing legal system alone cannot completely and effectively solve this long-standing social problem. We must strengthen efforts, speed up the pace, strengthen legal supervision and protection in the process of the rule of law, prevent sexual harassment from breeding in today's society, and say "no" to sexual harassment from the root and source!