Study On Regulating Sexual Harassment With Criminal Law

Sexual harassment has a long history,and now it has become a common social problem all over the world.Sexual harassment violates the individual’s sexual autonomy,which is not conducive to the development of individuals and the stability of society.Therefore,many countries have criminalized it and cracked it down through separate legislation.It can be seen that the criminalization of sexual harassment is becoming an inevitable trend.In our country,sexual harassment is not a legal concept with a clear meaning.In practice,only the civil or administrative responsibility of the perpetrator can be investigated.Because there is no independent charge corresponding to it in criminal law,only when sexual harassment meets the constitutive requirements of specific charges(such as compulsory indecency),can its criminal responsibility be investigated.However,there are many different forms of sexual harassment in reality.For some serious sexual harassment,the civil and administrative means are not enough to crack down on it.But on the other hand,most of the acts of sexual harassment do not conform to the elements of the existing criminal law,such as the crime of forced indecency.Even if the acts reach a serious level,they cannot be regulated by criminal law.Therefore,It is necessary to criminalize sexual harassment(mainly non compulsory sexual harassment)as an independent crime.In view of the current difficulties in combating sexual harassment,we should make a local interpretation of the loanword "sexual harassment" and build a discourse system of sexual harassment in China,and further clarify the specific ways of sexual harassment into crime.In the context of Chinese language,"sexual harassment" refers to the words or actions made by one party to the other against the will of others and related to sex,except for sexual violence,while "sexual harassment" in the sense of Criminal Law refers to the criminal acts that severely damage the other party’s sexual autonomy in addition to rape and other violent sexual violations.Under the current legal system,serious sexual harassment can be divided into mandatory harassment and non mandatory harassment.The former is classified as the crime of forced indecency,and the latter as the new one.The crime of sexual harassment is expressed as "kissing,hugging,touching other people’s privacy parts or other sexual violations while others are not prepared,or violating other people’s will,using labor,education and other special relationships to put forward sexual requirements for others";the constitution of this crime has limited conditions,that is,sexual harassment needs to reach the serious circumstances or cause serious harmful consequences before it can constitute a crime;this crime is a misdemeanor in nature,so its legal punishment is set below three years,and it is set as a pro confession.In the aspect of judicial application,we should reduce victim’s burden of proof,and introduce criminal reconciliation,leniency of confession and punishment and other criminal litigation systems to achieve the purpose of relief and correction.Finally,we should give full play to the prevention and relief functions of other non criminal law means,including improving civil and administrative prosecution channels,adding the content of prevention and control of sexual harassment in other department laws,setting up special treatment institutions and processes in special fields such as campus and workplace,and strengthening the coordination and connection between criminal law regulations and other relief measures.Through the combination of criminal legislation and other system construction,a complete legal system of prevention and control of sexual harassment will finally be formed.