{"id":2190,"date":"2023-04-16T13:44:52","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T13:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2023-05-26T12:40:05","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T12:40:05","slug":"sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/2023\/04\/16\/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE- By Ruth Ikeanyi"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is important to note that there is a paucity of Nigerian Legislation on the subject matter. However, there are few Laws and Rules of Court that have broached the subject alongside some domesticated international conventions. These include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as Amended): Section 34<\/strong> provides that every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person.<\/li>\n
  2. The Criminal Law of Lagos State: Section 262<\/strong> prohibits harassment that implicitly or explicitly affects a person\u2019s employment or educational opportunity or unreasonably interferes with the person\u2019s work or educational performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive learning or working environment. In addition, any person who sexually harasses another in Lagos State is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for three years.<\/li>\n
  3. The National Industrial Court Civil Procedure Rules <\/strong>2017: Order 14 Rule 1 (a), (b), (c) and (d) <\/em><\/strong>specifies four categories of acts that may constitute workplace sexual harassment and includes the following:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      \n
    • Physical conduct of a sexual nature: such as unwanted physical contact, ranging from touching to sexual assault and rape, strip search by or in the presence of the opposite sex, gesture that constitutes the alleged sexual harassment; and\/or <\/em><\/li>\n
    • A verbal form of sexual harassment: such as unwelcome innuendoes, suggestions and hints, sexual advances, comments with sexual overtones, sex related jokes or insults, or unwelcome graphic comments about a person\u2019s body, unwelcome and inappropriate enquiries about a person\u2019s sex life and unwelcome whistling at a person or group of persons, any document, material or exhibit in further support of the claim ; and\/or <\/em><\/li>\n
    • A non-verbal form of sexual harassment which includes unwelcome gestures, indecent exposures, and unwelcome display of sexually explicit pictures and objects; and\/or <\/em><\/li>\n
    • Quid pro quo harassment where an owner, employer, supervisor, member of management or co-employee undertakes or attempts to influence or influences the process of employment, promotion, training, discipline, dismissal, salary increments or other benefits of an employee or job applicant in exchange for sexual favors. <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
        \n
      1. The United Nations Convention on The Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW): <\/strong>Recommendation Number 19 of the CEDAW <\/strong>stipulates that “it is discriminatory when the woman has reasonable grounds to believe that her objection would disadvantage her in connection with her employment, including recruiting or promotion, or when it creates a hostile working environment.”<\/em><\/li>\n
      2. International Labour Organization’s Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention <\/em><\/strong>1958 No 111: Article 1 <\/strong>states \u201c<\/em>For the purpose of this Convention the term discrimination <\/em><\/strong>includes:<\/li>\n
      3. any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin, which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation;<\/li>\n
      4. such other distinction, exclusion or preference which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation as may be determined by the Member concerned after consultation with representative employers’ and workers’ organizations, where such exist, and with other appropriate bodies.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        From the provisions of the foregoing legislations, it is clear that sexual harassment is a criminal act and punishable by law. It is important to note that employers are vicariously liable for incidents of sexual harassment which happens within the company without such employer taking steps to investigate and address the situation after becoming aware of the act. In the case of EJIKE MADUKA V. MICROSOFT <\/strong>Unreported Suit: NICN\/LA\/492\/2012, the National Industrial Court held Microsoft, the Employer, vicariously liable for the actions of one employee towards an\/other employee(s) which was not addressed by the company after it became aware of the fact. <\/strong><\/p>\n

        Employers owe a duty to their employees to provide a toxic-free workplace for employees and this duty specifically includes a workplace free from all sorts of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        The Nigerian Trade Marks Act[1] (Act) prohibits the registration of a trademark which is confusingly similar to an already existing trademark and which is likely to deceive or cause confusion in the course of trade[2].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2245,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/2245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lolabolarinwaandco.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}