FOUR WAYS TO HANDLE SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE NIGERIAN WORKPLACE

Sexual harassment can be seen as an unwanted sexual advance, whether verbal, an image or video, or physical that may lead to offending or humiliating the second party. There are different ways you can be sexually harassed, some of them include:

•Inappropriate staring

•Making unnecessary

•Physical contact like touching someone at inappropriate places

•Stalking someone and sending sexual content to them

•Making unwanted social jokes
There are mainly two types of sexual harassment, they are:

•Quid pro quo: this is a type of sexual harassment that’s targeted at your job or assignment. Whoever is harassing you will threaten to take away your job or given assignment if you do not succumb to his/her sexual needs,

•Hostile work environment: this involves throwing social comments or conducts that can create a hostile environment for someone. If whatever a colleague or a boss sexually says to you makes you uncomfortable or unproductive then it is sexual harassment.
The first thing to note about sexual harassment is that IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. In this article, we are going to look at four ways to handle sexual harassment in your workplace. The four ways include:
•Keeping a record.
•Address it immediately,
•Report them.
•Quit.

KEEPING A RECORD
Keeping a record of every sexual harassment will give you an edge over your harasser. Get screenshots if it’s online, if it’s in an open place, document it, if there were witnesses, document it too. Write everything down for reference and proof. Record phone calls, and chats in the office, your phone should always be close to you whenever the person is close. Do not let anything go, make sure you document every incident. This will help you provide proof in case of a police report or court case.

ADDRESS IT IMMEDIATELY
Address the issue immediately, make sure you confront the person and let him/her know of your displeasure regarding his approaches and innuendos, if it’s a colleague, let them know you’re not comfortable with the advances and they should stop, same goes for your boss. We understand that this may be a little hard to do especially if you are at risk of losing your job, which brings us to our next point

REPORT THEM
If the person continues harassing you even after your warning, or the person is your boss and you cannot confront him/her. Kindly report them to either a higher management, and if he/she is the CEO, report it to the authorities. Though there is no federal law in Nigeria that has sanctioned sexual harassment, the state laws have been put in place to handle that. Report the case to the police and present your proof stated in the first point.

QUIT
Reporting a boss can be a bit hard, especially in Nigeria. The best thing to do if you’re sexually harassed and you can’t do any of the above-mentioned is to quit your job and move on to another job.
We hope this article was helpful?