363 sexual harassment cases at work reported last year

A total of 363 sexual harassment cases were reported at local workplaces last year, and the Ministry of Labor officially acknowledged 84 of them as punishable acts. But of the 50 offenders, only 39 were punished. Eight of them were dismissed from their jobs.

The ministry said Wednesday that it received 363 complaints of sexual harassment from 36 workplaces last year. The largest number (328) came from employees of the Lotte Hotel. Only 19 cases were reported in 1999.

The number of consultations on sexual harassment increased 2.7 times from 142 in 1999 to 389 in 2000, indicating that an increasing number of victims are actively seeking to protect their rights.

The government said that it failed to punish one of the offenders because he was an employer but plans to levy fines on Lotte Hotel, which is refusing to punish 10 of those responsible for sexual harassment. In most of the reported cases, men forced women employees to pour liquor or dance with them at parties.

But in some rare cases, men complained about their female bosses sexually harassing them. One male hairdresser said that his female boss sexually harassed him but that he did not press charges against her.

¡°As the awareness of sexual harassment among female workers is improving, employers need to take even more preventive steps and implement further education programs,¡± said a ministry official. But he also hinted that quite a few women filed charges against their former lovers as acts of retaliation for leaving them.