SEXUAL harassment has no place in the working environment.

• Author: ZELDA VENTER
• Published date: 06 October 2022
• Publication title: Cape Times, The (Cape Town, South Africa)

The legislature continuously makes the message clearer and louder by passing legislation designed to eradicate sexual harassment from the workplace, the Labour Court said in awarding a police captain R50 000 after she was sexually harassed

The SAPS was ordered to pay the woman, who cannot be named, after it was found to have dragged its feet in investigating her claims that her superior was sexually harassing her.

Judge Zolashe Lallie said: “Sexual harassment is used, in most cases, by employers and employees entrusted with some level of authority to oppress, exploit and dominate those with less or no authority at all.

“In this case, like in most cases, the victim of sexual harassment is a woman and the perpetrator a man,” she said.

“Like all employees, women go to work to sell their skills and labour and to practise their professions to earn an income, not for the sexual pleasure of their employers or other employees, irrespective of the positions they hold,” Judge Lallie said.

The applicant told the court that during 2013 and 2014, her supervisor made sexual advances towards her.

She lodged her first formal grievance of sexual harassment against her superior in June 2015. She was told to report to another officer while the investigation was being undertaken into her complaints, which included that her superior “touched her breasts with his thumb on occasions, which made her uncomfortable”.

The investigation dragged its heels until the applicant reported it to the provincial head office. In June 2017, the Sexual Harassment Task Team took over the investigation...