III. Gender-based Violence and Access to Justice set reasonable compensation standards; and implement an examination, training, and dismissal mechanism in order to protect the rights of female migrant workers in legal proceedings.
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace 13. Victims of sexual harassment in the workplace lack clear access to remedies when their employer is the perpetrator.16 There is no recusal mechanism for complaints committees, which are jointly formed by the employer and the employee’s representative.17 14. The Act of Gender Equality in Employment only requires employers with 30 or more employees to establish and disclose prevention, complaint, and disciplinary measures. This requirement does not 16 According to an MOL survey, between 2017 and 2020, the percentage of female employees who have been sexually harassed in the workplace in the most recent year is about 3.4% to 4.6%, of which only 0.7% to 1.2% filed a complaint. The most common perpetrators of workplace sexual harassment are colleagues, followed by clients or employers. According to a 2021 online survey conducted by women’s groups and a job bank, at least 40% of female workers have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. Women’s groups are concerned that the government survey results underestimate levels of sexual harassment in the workplace, which may lead to an inaccurate understanding of the reality. The MOL replied to the NHRC that it is not appropriate to compare the results head-to-head since different survey methods were adopted. 17 In response to the NHRC, the MOL stated that it amended the Regulations for Establishing Measures of Prevention, Correction, Complaint and Punishment of Sexual Harassment at Workplace in 2020. The regulations stipulate that employers with more than 30 employees shall openly display complaint measures and specify that if the employer is the harasser, the employee may file a complaint with the local competent authority. However, the NHRC found that this requirement is at a low level in the legal hierarchy and has no clear legal mandate. So far the standard operating procedures for local authorities to process complaints have failed to include the employer-as-perpetrator scenario. In addition, Article 7 of the regulations only state that “the employer and the employee representatives shall organize a committee for handling sexual harassment complaints . . . [and] attention shall be paid to an appropriate proportion of committee members’ gender,” without stipulating a recusal mechanism.
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