Legislators in Shanghai submitted a draft to the city's
legislature on Wednesday, which for the first time specifies forms
of sexual harassment in China.
The draft, which refers to Shanghai's implementation of the
national Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women,
says in its 31st item that "sexual harassment of women in the form
of spoken and written language, images, electronic information and
bodily gestures is prohibited."
"Harassed women have the right to report the case to the
relevant organizations, which should take measures to prevent women
from being sexually harassed," the draft added.
It said women who are sexually harassed have the right to ask
public security departments to take punitive measures against the
harassers, or even bring a civil lawsuit.
Legal experts said that specifying the forms of sexual
harassment will make existing state-level laws more effective.
When China's Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of
Women was revised last year, an item was added that "prohibited the
sexual harassment of women."
But without any clear illustration or definition, the law has
not proved very helpful in practice, experts said.
Some people believe that sexual harassment is essentially a
subjective feeling of the "harassed object". In others words, the
criteria for judgment should be whether the actions were done on
purpose, whether or not they were welcome and whether or not they
gave rise to serious consequences.
State laws and the new draft focus on the objective forms of
sexual harassment. It remains to be seen whether this approach will
contribute to the enforcement of the law.
(Xinhua News Agency October 26, 2006)