Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Olivia Grange, has indicated that Jamaica's draft National Sexual Harassment Policy should be passed within the 2009-2010 financial year.

"People do not know how to report sexual harassment or where to seek redress. This policy will be a guide to other organisations in creating their own sexual harassment policies," said Grange, whose ministry has direct responsibility for women and gender affairs.

"We intend that this legislation is passed within this financial year."

Grange was addressing a full auditorium of government workers and officials, business people, NGO representatives, representatives from women's organisations, community groups and the media at a Sexual Harassment Sensitisation Forum in Kingston recently.

She held the draft Sexual Harassment Policy high and explained it was a step towards sexual harassment legislation in Jamaica.

In Jamaica, many people do not know how to define sexual harassment, let alone report it. As a daily part of living, females endure lascivious looks, comments and gestures from men they know as well as total strangers.

Some people see nothing wrong with pinching or caressing another person as an expression of admiration, whether the targets of their admiration welcome the attention or not.

In the workplace, stories of male and female bosses, who sexually harass their subordinates, are common. The workplace victims are pressured to submit to unwelcome advances or risk demotion and job loss. Sexual harassment at work also plays out in subtle ways. The display of nude pictures, sexually suggestive graphics on coffee mugs and the computer, although inappropriate, are common. Many people see nothing harmful in these things.

"Any conduct of a sexual nature that is unwelcome or uncomfortable to the victim is sexual harassment," said Faith Webster, executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs. She was speaking at a Sexual Harassment Sensitisation Forum in Kingston, put on recently by the Bureau of Women's Affairs.

Training and sensitisation

In a recent release, the Bureau of Women's Affairs said sexual harassment in private, and in public, has become a "disturbing problem" in Jamaica.

The sexual harassment forum marked the closing session of a national project to reduce violence against women. The project, funded by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, involved months of training and sensitisation programmes for Jamaican government workers and human resource practitioners.