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Half of Japan Public Servants Get Harassed Sexually
More than two-thirds of female public servants in Japan suffer from some form of sexual harassment, although serious acts such as stalking and body touching have become rare, a new government survey shows.
More than half of Japanese bureaucrats of both sexes have experienced some form of sexual harassment and the figure rises to 69.2 percent for women, according to the poll conducted by the National Personnel Authority between July and September and released this week.
The introduction last year of laws prohibiting sexual harassment has helped dramatically reduce serious cases such as touching the body and stalking since the last survey in 1997, the agency said. But many women working for the government ministries still suffer from questions about their age and appearance and also sex jokes in the office, the survey showed.
A separate government survey in May showed that complaints about sexual harassment had jumped 35 percent last year, about half of which were filed by women workers. In about 10 percent of cases, women workers said they had been treated unfairly in their jobs by their male superiors after refusing to have sex with them, the report said.
A prevailing complaint among women was that their companies did nothing to address their claims.
Anger over sexual harassment has been rising in recent years in Japan, where women travelling on the subways are frequently groped by male passengers and sexual harassment in the workplace is commonplace but rarely reported because of a sense of shame. But the idea that such harassment should no longer be tolerated is spreading, and more women are reporting the cases and taking action.
The National Personnel Authority"s survey showed that among male bureaucrats, 36.9 percent said they have been sexually harassed in some way. Many of those said they felt upset at their colleagues being harassed, the agency said.
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