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)