Different countries define sexual harassment in unique ways, reflecting their legal and cultural contexts, and employers must ensure compliance with local laws to protect employees and uphold workplace dignity.
Harassment may be defined in different ways in different countries. While the USA has a federal definition of sexual harassment that generally plays well with multi-jurisdictional state laws, many nations have their own definitions that are fine-tuned to their own legal contexts. Many Western laws are aimed specifically at protecting human dignity and contain language to that effect.
For example, in Canada, sexual harassment is defined as conduct (including comments and gestures) that is likely to cause offense or humiliation to any employee or that might, on reasonable grounds, be perceived as placing a condition of a sexual nature on employment or employment opportunities (such as training or promotion).
In the UK, sexual harassment is defined as conduct (including verbal, nonverbal, and physical) of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of violating the recipient’s dignity or of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment for the recipient.
Be aware that other laws may be more complicated or may have additional definitions or a different legal logic.
For example, The German General Equal Treatment Act (GETA) is a fairly recent law (2006) and defines discrimination, indirect discrimination, and harassment separately and carefully.
Under that law: Discrimination takes place if a person is treated less favorably than another because of one of GETA’s listed attributes (race, ethnic origin, religion, belief, sex, disability, sexual identity). Indirect discrimination takes place if neutral provisions, criteria, or procedures can discriminate against a person for one of GETA’s listed attributes. However, it clarifies that not every unequal treatment constitutes a violation of GETA, depending on the facts and justification.
Harassment is discrimination and therefore illegal under GETA if: unwanted behavior is related to one of GETA’s defined attributes; or if unwanted conduct of a sexual nature has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the affected person; and if an environment is established that is characterized by intimidation, hostility, humiliation, degradation, or insult. GETA also defines employment consequences for individuals who engage in harassment or discrimination, including admonitions, letters of reprimand, transfer, or termination (possibly without notice).
Another example is the French Labor Code. It states (in translation) that no employee shall be “subject to sexual harassment, consisting of repeated remarks or behavior with a sexual or sexist connotation which either undermines his/her dignity because of their degrading or humiliating nature or creates a hostile or offensive situation against him/her.” It goes on to define sexual harassment as consisting of: “When an employee is subjected to such comments or behavior from several people, in a concerted manner, or at the instigation of one of them, even though each of these people has not acted repeatedly. Or when an employee is subjected to such remarks or behavior successively, coming from several people who, even when they are not acting in concert, know that these remarks or behavior characterize repetitive conduct. Or, conduct which is treated as sexual harassment consisting of any form of serious pressure, even if not repeated, that is applied with the actual or apparent aim of obtaining an act of a sexual nature, whether this is sought for the benefit of the perpetrator or the benefit of a third party.”
All four of these laws have subtle differences in how they approach concepts of dignity, humiliation, harassment, discrimination, and offensive work environments. They vary in complexity when compared to each other and to other laws, such as Title VII. But all of these laws aim at preserving values, and similarly protect employees from harassment.
Employers working in these, and other countries should work with local counsel to make sure their policies and practices are correct within that jurisdiction—including the U.S.!