Nearly two in three Australian women have been sexually harassed in the workplace, according to a survey of more than 9,600 conducted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, one of the country’s largest groups representing workers.
Roughly 64 parents of women respondents said they were harassed at their current or former workplace, yet a majority of the incidents were not reported due to fears of repercussion, according to Reuters.
The survey found that only about a quarter of the women who said they experienced sexual harassment at work reported the incident.
Additionally, 35 percent of men who responded to the survey said they have experienced sexual harassment at work.
“Everyone should go to work free from the fear of harassment and unwanted sexual attention,” council president Michele O’Neil said in a statement. “For many people – mainly women – today in Australia this is not the reality. Our workplace laws have failed women who are experiencing harassment at work.”
A Quinnipiac University poll from last year found that 69 percent of female survey respondents in America had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
A large number of countries, from the United States to Australia, have been facing increased social pressure to reform workplace policies in an attempt to curtail sexual harassment.
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