Fawcett comments on 'men-only' Presidents Club sexual harassment

24 JANUARY 2018

This week The Financial Times reported that women employed to host a 'men-only' Presidents Club Charity Dinner at The Dorchester Hotel were subjected to groping, sexist dress codes and rampant sexual harassment.

Fawcett Chief Executive Sam Smethers says:

"Sexual harassment but all in a good cause? This is completely outrageous and proves why we need sexual harassment by clients or customers to be covered by law. At the moment these women are unable to hold their employer to account for putting them in that situation."

Our Sex Discrimination Law Review published this week makes it clear that the law needs urgent reform. A study published by The Guardian found that 89% of workers in the hospitality industry said they had experienced one or more incidents of sexual harassment in their working life. They are currently not protected from sexual harassment at work if they are harassed by a customer, client or contractor.

We are calling the Government to have third party harassment laws, which were scrapped in 2013, reinstated so all women have better access to justice. Sign this petition to make your voice heard.

Our ground-breaking Sex Discrimination Law Review concludes that our legal system is failing women and needs fundamental reform. The report also found that violence against women and girls is ‘endemic’ in the UK.

The SDLR Panel was made up of a team of legal experts and chaired by Dame Laura Cox, DBE, a retired High Court Justice. It was set up to review the UK’s sex discrimination laws in response to the risk that long-established rights could be eroded or weakened as a result of Brexit and leaving the EU single market. It also considered the effectiveness of current laws and how best to balance the rights of the individual with the responsibilities of the organisation.

The report, which is the first of its kind, calls for a number of specific changes to the legal system. These include strengthening the laws on sexual harassment at work to protect women from harassment by third parties, making ‘up-skirting’ an offence, making misogyny a hate crime, making any breach of a domestic abuse order a criminal offence and extending protection from pregnancy discrimination to 6 months after maternity leave ends.

Read the full report here

If you believe in creating a more progressive agenda for Britain, take a stand with us. Join us today.

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