With men and women having different levels of sensitivity, the particular facts of each situation to determine whether offensive conduct has “crossed the line” from simply boorish or childish behavior has become blurry. And the lines even become more blurred when there is no law covering sexual harassment. With lot of women joining the labor market in the Kingdom, the legal boundaries on sexual harassment remain so poorly marked, if there is any at all. Labor laws still cling to an era when women were not counted for in the labor market, thus sexual harassment didn't then seem to be an issue for legislators. But times have changed and so has the status of women in the Kingdom with engagement in meaningful activities outside their homes. Now women are onboard and applying for jobs everyday, making a law on sexual harassment a necessity, said Saudi columnist Maha Al-Hujailan. In the silence of law on sexual harassment, people behave as they wish. Now the majority of employees, men or women, have reportedly taken the best course by avoiding all sexually charged conduct in the workplace. There is no available statistics on cases of sexual harassment in the Kingdom, precisely due to the fact of the conservative nature of the Saudi society that would keep low profile on it and lack of any enacted law concerning it. But the line between friendly chat and sexual harassment has to be legally drawn. Shoura Council has taken the initiative to enact a law to protect both sexes from sexual harassment in the workplace. Earlier, Sheikh Saleh Bin Humaid, President of the Shoura Council, asked the Social Affairs and Family and Youth Commission at the Council to quickly issue a draft legislation to protect women's rights, calling on the Commission to require women to wear ‘decent' (or Muhtashim) clothes in workplaces. The draft law is in its final stages, said Faisal Ahmed Yamani, a legislator at the Shoura Council, according to Al-Riyadh. It would be submitted to the Council for approval, he told Al-Riyadh. The United Nations Development Fund for Women defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome or unwanted verbal, non-verbal, physical or visual conduct based on sex or of a sexual nature; the acceptance or rejection of which affects an individual's employment.” And so does the proposed law define it. In addition, law draft specifies cases falling within the scope of sexual harassment, pins down the responsibility of employers and their roles to deter acts of sexual harassment, and specifies administrative penalties and procedures of prosecution of sexual harassment. “Any unwanted sexual advances, implied or implicit, causing a feeling of discomfort, insult, or psychological pressure of a man or a woman is classified as sexual harassment,” he said. The law draft divides sexual harassment into two categories. The first one is sexual harassment per se, as to actually engage in sexual relationship. The second is classified as repeated sexual harassment intended to create a hostile work environment to affect a person's job, which might compromise his/her rights at work, dignity, or affect the performance and promotion. “There is an urgent need to draft a new law to prevent harassment in the work environment,” he added. “But, in fact, it is not a new legislation as Islam has tackled sexual harassment and established codes of ethics at work,” he said. Shoura Council member Dr. Mazen Balilah, who raised the risks of sexual harassment suffered by both women and men in the workplace, demanded the Council to issue a legislation to deter harassers. “We must take the initiative to pass a legislation that regulates relationships between women and men in the workplace as it is the case with labor laws in the West and Muslim countries alike,” he said. Sexual harassment must stop and harassers must be punished, he advised. Although Saudi labor law protects the workers' rights and health, it has not yet come up with a clear cut law to protect workers against sexual harassment or exploitation, he said. Work relationship should always remain within work topped by mutual respect and appreciation between men and women, and any reference or comment or act of sexual nature should be punished, he added. Dr. Balilah wrote in his column last February: “Two young girls were buying lingerie from a man at a shop. He told one of them that the item she had chosen wasn't suitable for her but would be for her friend because her breast size was larger. Both of them were embarrassed and left the shop immediately.” “What the salesman committed was verbal harassment. If he knew that there were laws to punish him for what he said while doing his job, he might have thought twice before saying that. He should have been punished for his callous remark,” he concluded. __
