No scope for sexual harassment in the workplace

The labour ministry is determined to stamp out and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, Labour Minister Zeta Emilianidou said on Wednesday.

Addressing an event on the issue, Emilianidou said that her ministry remains focused on its commitment for the effective application of the law on equal treatment between men and women in the work place.

“Sexual harassment can be the expression of authority by the perpetrator to the victim through abuse of the working relationship created between them in the workplace,” Emilianidou said. Based on the provisions of the law on gender equality in the work place, Emilianidou said, sexual harassment “is no longer a private dispute between the victim and the perpetrator, since sexual harassment behaviours in the workplace are the result of the opportunities arising from labour relations”.

Workers, she said, have the right not to be exploited in any form by reason of their and employers have the legal responsibility to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for their employees.

“A worker who considers himself or herself a victim of sexual harassment by any colleague, irrespective of the hierarchical relationship between them, has the right to denounce this behaviour to his or her employer and the latter has an obligation to respond and to apply the law,” she said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.