The Legal Definition And Consequence Of Sexual Harassment

As sexual harassment has become a concern around the world, many developed countries like U.S.A and Japan have taken the leading role in issuing laws in this aspect. Other countries can take the advantage and learn from their experience.The basic rule to judge whether an act is sexual harassment or not is coming from the tradition and convenance of the country. Researching sexual harassment rules of different countries, they usually analyze the problem from two points of view which are sexual discrimination or violating individual right. Chinese scholars tend to take the latter one. Due to the obvious disadvantages, many countries have recently abandoned the previous view. Though most Chinese scholars accept the latter views, they have not made it unanimous in which right sexual harassment violates. In fact sexual harassment violates the individual sexual independence which originating from sexual right of every human being. In order to set up the blueprint of anti sexual harassment rules, it is essential to establish the right of sexual independence together with the theory of "general admit/forbid".According to tortious law, to define an act as sexual harassment it must live up to four conditions: the act of sexual harassment, the damage of victim, the fault of inflicter as well as the consequence of the act and damage. As a typical kind of sexual harassment, workplace sexual harassment is provided with special qualities. It can be divided into three kinds: quid pro quo, hostile work environment and compositive.The liability of sexual harassment includes halt infraction, apology, rehab and compensate (property damage, body damage and mental damage). In the case of workplace sexual harassment, the employer might take the related liability in different situation.