This thesis is an exploration of perceptions of sexual harassment in Thailand, together with policies and measures against the practice. My main research questions are: How do Thai people perceive sexual harassment? And what can be done to combat and address sexual harassment in Thailand? My research also provides recommendations for measures against sexual harassment in Thailand. The Thai term &quot kan kukkam tang phet &quot is used to convey ???sexual harassment??? in this study. The participants in my study understand kan kukkam tang phet as a broad term covering sexual behaviors that range from verbal harassment to rape. In general, the participants consider that sexual harassment is a big problem in Thailand. However, my research found that there are some perceptions and attitudes of Thai people that need to be dealt with as obstructions of measures against sexual harassment, such as blaming women as a cause of sexual harassment, anti-women prejudices, and the use of the excuse of cultural differences in implementing anti-sexual harassment laws. In regard to the question of legislation addressing sexual harassment in Thailand and what can be done to help to counter it, my findings are that Thailand has no clear approach to sexual harassment; no clear legal definition of sexual harassment; no specific authority or organization at the national level to redress sexual harassment; and no statistics on sexual harassment by national surveys. The promotion of awareness of sexual harassment has not yet been the subject of formal campaigns. My thesis presents recommendations to address sexual harassment in Thailand, through both legal measures and social measures. The legal measures proposed are sexual harassment law, a code of practice, and revision of the Penal Code. I suggest that sexual harassment law should be based on an ???anti-discrimination??? approach, to be consistent with the obligations of Thailand to implement suitable measures to give effect to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Social measures including education, campaigns and surveys on sexual harassment in the Thai community are also recommended in terms of raising the understanding of the concept and awareness of the issue.

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This thesis is an exploration of perceptions of sexual harassment in Thailand, together with policies and measures against the practice. My main research questions are: How do Thai people perceive sexual harassment? And what can be done to combat and address sexual harassment in Thailand? My research also provides recommendations for measures against sexual harassment in Thailand. The Thai term &quot kan kukkam tang phet &quot is used to convey ???sexual harassment??? in this study. The participants in my study understand kan kukkam tang phet as a broad term covering sexual behaviors that range from verbal harassment to rape. In general, the participants consider that sexual harassment is a big problem in Thailand. However, my research found that there are some perceptions and attitudes of Thai people that need to be dealt with as obstructions of measures against sexual harassment, such as blaming women as a cause of sexual harassment, anti-women prejudices, and the use of the excuse of cultural differences in implementing anti-sexual harassment laws. In regard to the question of legislation addressing sexual harassment in Thailand and what can be done to help to counter it, my findings are that Thailand has no clear approach to sexual harassment; no clear legal definition of sexual harassment; no specific authority or organization at the national level to redress sexual harassment; and no statistics on sexual harassment by national surveys. The promotion of awareness of sexual harassment has not yet been the subject of formal campaigns. My thesis presents recommendations to address sexual harassment in Thailand, through both legal measures and social measures. The legal measures proposed are sexual harassment law, a code of practice, and revision of the Penal Code. I suggest that sexual harassment law should be based on an ???anti-discrimination??? approach, to be consistent with the obligations of Thailand to implement suitable measures to give effect to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Social measures including education, campaigns and surveys on sexual harassment in the Thai community are also recommended in terms of raising the understanding of the concept and awareness of the issue.

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A few months after having enacted a criminal statute creating the general offence of sexual harassment, the French Parliament enacted the Statute n° 92-1179 "relative a l'abus d'autorite en matiere sexuelle dans les relations de travail". In this statute, as in the criminal statute, the French legislator considers sexual harassment in a peculiar way, and departs from the North-American position on three points: / First, while American law and Canadian law understand clearly sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination, the French approach is more ambiguous. It appears that the French legislator understands sexual harassment more as an infringement to freedom than a form of sex discrimination. / Second, the French legislator has defined sexual harassment in a more restrictive way than in North America. While American law and Canadian law prohibit hostile harassment and sexual harassment by colleagues, these forms of sexual harassment are not prohibited in French law. Finally, on the question of the employer's liability, the French approach is more "timid" than in American law and in Canadian law. / The French legislator has justified its more restrictive approach to the problem of sexual harassment in comparison with the North-American position by two arguments: the fear of the "American 'drift'" and the peculiarity of the relationships between women and men in France. However, it is argued that the choice of the French legislator is not convenient because it leaves a significant number of victims outside the scope of the law, and is not clear enough on the employer's obligations. Furthermore, it is maintained that both arguments of the legislator are more caricatural than real.

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves 175-180. / Photocopy. / Microfilm. / xii, 180 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Africa as no exception. It is generally accepted that women constitute the vast majority of sexual harassment victims. Sexual harassment is therefore one of the major barriers to women’s equality as it is a significant obstacle to women’s entrance into many sectors of the labour market. The Constitution now provides that no person may unfairly discriminate against anyone on grounds of, inter alia, sex and gender. The Employment Equity Act now provides that harassment is a form of unfair discrimination. It has been said that harassment is discriminatory because it raises an arbitrary barrier to the full and equal enjoyment of a person’s rights in the workplace. Much can be learned from the law of the United States and that country’s struggle to fit harassment under its discrimination laws. The Code of Good Practice on the Handling of Sexual Harassment Cases attempts to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace by providing procedures that will enable employers to deal with occurrences of sexual harassment and to implement preventative measures. The Code also encourages employers to develop and implement policies on sexual harassment that will serve as a guideline for the conduct of all employees. Although the Code has been subject to some criticism, particularly regarding the test for sexual harassment, it remains a valuable guide to both employers and employees alike. The appropriate test for sexual harassment as a form of unfair discrimination has given rise to debate. Both the subjective test and the objective test for sexual harassment present problems. Some authors recommend a compromise between these two tests in the form of the “reasonable victim” test. The Employment Equity Act makes the employer liable for the prohibited acts of the employee in certain circumstances. The Act, however, places certain responsibilities on the employer and the employee-victim before the employer will be held liable for sexual harassment committed by an employee. Sexual harassment committed by an employee constitutes misconduct and can be a dismissible offence. An employer may also be held to have constructively dismissed an employee, if the employer was aware of the sexual harassment and failed to control such behaviour, and the employee is forced to resign. The test for determining the appropriateness of the sanction of dismissal for sexual harassment is whether or not the employee’s misconduct is serious and of such gravity that it makes a continued employment relationship intolerable. However, for such a dismissal to be fair it must be both substantively fair and procedurally fair.

Sexual harassment is an ever increasing drain on the resources of the modern employer, as well as serving to take up much time in terms of legal battles and court cases. The concept of sexual harassment has undergone much revision over the past decades, and South Africa is now firmly committed to the eradication of this problem. The Constitution protects and enshrines important rights like dignity, equality and the right to fair labour practices. These are further defined and protected through the application of various statutes, including the LRA, EEA, PEPUDA and the revised Code of Good Practice. In terms of statutory liability, the employer will be liable for the harassment of its employees, unless it takes a proactive stance and implements comprehensive sexual harassment policies. In this way it will escape liability. The common law vicarious liability of the employer cannot be escaped as easily. The entire concept of the law of delict is to remedy harm suffered. In terms of the common law, employers will be held vicariously liable for the harassment of their employees if it can be shown that the harassment occurred within a valid working relationship, if the harassment actually occurred through a delict, and if the act occurred within the course and scope of employment. The best way for employers to minimize their liability for sexual harassment is the implementation of training and educational policies that serve to make employees aware of what is permissible in the workplace. This will aid the employer in showing that it has done everything possible to reduce the risk of harassment, which will in turn serve to reduce the employer’s liability. To protect against the risk of expensive litigation, many employers are now investigating the matter of liability insurance – they would rather pay increased premiums than suffer alone when their employees take legal action against them. Sexual harassment is a problem that can only be solved through a concerted effort on the part of the legislature, judiciary, employers and employees. Together, these parties must ensure that all of those involved in the world of work are aware of the problem of harassment, as well as taking steps to educate and train employees so as to prevent it. Only in this way will we be able to take action to reduce this terrible problem in our country.

Sexual harassment has been in existence for a long time in the workplace without any attempt to understand, define and effectively combat this rather undesirable and serious form of misconduct. Until fairly recently, the growing problem of sexual harassment and its damaging effect have been given much attention by legal authorities and society at large. The effect of sexual harassment is that it embarrasses or humiliates the victim. The victim may also suffer from trauma which, in turn, affects his/her performance at work. Numerous definitions have been provided on what constitutes sexual harassment. Sexual harassment takes place when a women‟s sexual role overshadows her work role in the eyes of the male, whether it be a supervisor, co-worker, client or customer. In other words, her gender receives more attention than her work. Sexual harassment is also seen as unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that violates the rights of an employee and constitutes a barrier to equity in the workplace.1 The Bill of Rights in the Constitution2 entrenches the rights of everyone. Worth mentioning are the “right to equality”, “the right to dignity”, “the right to privacy” and “the right to fair labour practices”. Furthermore, section 6(3) of the Employment Equity Act3 states that “harassment is a form of unfair discrimination” which is prohibited in terms of section 6(1) of the same Act. Section 60 of the Employment Equity Act deals with statutory vicarious liability where the employer is held liable for his acts and/or omission to take measures to against sexual harassment or a failure to put a grievance procedure in place. Where such an employer has done what is reasonably necessary to prevent and to address sexual harassment, he/she will escape liability for the misconduct of the employee. This section also provides for mechanisms that an employer may employ to minimise liability where harassment has taken place. In addition to statutory vicarious liability is the common law vicarious liability, where the employer is vicariously liable for the delict of the employee. This form of liability is also referred to as “no-fault liability”. The employer will be held liable where the following requirements for vicarious liability in common law are met: firstly, there must be an “employer-employee relationship”, secondly, a “delict must be committed” and thirdly, the “employee must have been acting in the scope or course of employment when the delict was committed”. Liability can also be directly imputed on the employer. In this instance, it has to be proven that “the employer committed an act or omission; the act or omission was unlawful; the act or omission was culpable, intentional or negligent, and a third party suffered harm; either patrimonial damage or injury to personality; and the act or omission caused that harm”.

A central feature of sexual harassment in the workplace is that it essentially involves two sides of a coin an impairment of dignity, self-esteem, self-worth, respect, ubuntu, individual autonomy, and equality from a positive aspect and freedom from insult, degrading treatment, disrespect, abuse of trust and unfair discrimination from a negative aspect. The overlap between equality and dignity as founding values of the Constitution, constitutionally entrenched rights, and values underpinning the limitation clause in the Constitution is explored with a view to illustrating why sexual harassment is unacceptable in an open and democratic South Africa. The central theme of the thesis is that the future of the law on sexual harassment lies in the adoption of a multi-dimensional approach which focuses on dignity/ ubuntu because there can never be equality without respect for dignity/ ubuntu which is an essential pillar in the celebration of self-autonomy and humanity in a democratic society. A central focus of the research is that the harm of sexual harassment gives rise to various remedies, which are not mutually exclusive. The plaintiff can use one or more of the available remedies because sexual harassment is potentially a labour issue; a constitutional rights matter; a delict; unfair discrimination and can even manifest itself as a specific offence in criminal law. A wide range of data collection methods were used including reference to South African judicial precedent; legislation; selected foreign case law; the Constitution; textbooks; journal articles; feminist theories; and international conventions. The aim is to underscore the impairment suffered by women through sexual harassment, which includes economic harm, psychological harm, unfair discrimination, work sabotage, unequal access to employment opportunities and abuse of organizational power by supervisors. The multiple facets of the harm of sexual harassment such as treating women as sub-human, un-equal and as sub-citizens in total disregard of their constitutional rights, self-autonomy and ubuntu is highlighted in an effort to identify the essence of sexual harassment. The judicial tests, which determine whose perception of the nature of sexual harassment is decisive, are described. The focal point of the thesis advocates a judicial test for identifying sexual harassment, which is gender neutral, objective, and promotes the objects, purport, and spirit of the Bill of Rights by offering equal protection before the law. A critique of the current law on sexual harassment in South Africa is conducted in the light of the common-law principles of vicarious liability. An evaluation is made of how and to what extent the South African case law is compatible with Canadian and English authorities. This was done by broadening the scope of employment test to include approaches compatible with an abuse of power and trust; frolic of one's own; enterprise risk; mismanagement of duties; and abuse of supervisory authority and the sufficiently close nexus between the wrongful conduct and the employment. The United States supervisory harassment approach, which focuses on sexual harassment as an abuse of power or trust in employment relations, is critically regarded as having truly captured the essence of the risk of abuse inherent in the supervisor's delegated power. Statutory vicarious liability in terms of labour law is underscored because it is distinct from the common-law principles of vicarious liability in creating an element of deemed personal liability on the part of the employer for failure to take steps and ensure the eradication of gender discrimination. It is observed that women cannot be liberated as a class (gender equality) if they are not liberated as autonomous individuals (dignity). It is concluded that South African law is in harmony with the Canadian and English authorities on sexual harassment in the workplace and has the potential to deal adequately with sexual harassment cases in the workplace but only if attention is paid to the proposed emphasis and suggestions made in the thesis.