Deputies advance with a project to classify sexual harassment in workplaces

With broad support from different political forces, next Tuesday it will be debated in a plenary session of the Women and Diversities Commission a project that seeks combat sexual harassment in the workplace and academic spheres with the aim of issuing an opinion and advancing the discussion on campus.

The initiative was presented by the deputy of Unión por la Patria Monica Macha and reform the Comprehensive Protection Law to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence Against Women.

The project will criminalize sexual violence and harassmentwhich defines as “verbal, non-verbal, physical and/or psychological conduct or behavior, carried out by any means, of a sexual nature and not consensual, with the purpose and/or effect of violating the dignity of women, generating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating and/or offensive environment.”

In the foundations of the project, Macha pointed out that “this modality extends to women to the same degree in academic contexts, activating, in a surprising way and in context of serious power asymmetrytowards working women and/or students”.

In addition to Macha, the deputies of the PRO Silvana Guidici, María Sotolano, Nancy Ballejos, Silvia Lospennato and Sofia Brambilla; from Esteban Paulón Federal Meeting; of Democracy Forever Carla Carrizo; from the left Vanina Biasi, and from the Civic Coalition, Maximiliano Ferraro. The UxP legislators also signed Paula Penacca, Brenda Vargas Matyi, Gabriela Estévez and Carolina Gaillard.

What does the project to combat sexual harassment in work and academic environments consist of?

The UP representative based on the text of the norm that in Argentina “there are norms to penalize street harassment, but not for those grievances that occur in the workplace and academic environment” and emphasized that a law is necessary “that protects workers and students from situations that they would never choose.”

In addition, he highlighted that the project provides the tools for a company that “wants to fire a harassing employee for cause, but is not in a position to face a trial or pay disproportionate compensation. Now is the time to give all worthy parties tools to find solutions“.

Finally, he argued that “violence due to sexual harassment in the work and academic context is a type of generalized violence for yearsboth in Argentina and in various countries, and, at the same time, made invisible by society, institutions and the judicial system. “It has been naturalized and lacks a legislative approach in our country.”