Final Abstract

Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Sexual harassment at the workplace is a universal problem which is widespread and has far reaching consequences to the victims, employers, victims’ families and the society at large. The proposed research focuses on sexual harassments relating to women since they form the majority of victims. Available literature reveals that sexual harassment at Sri Lankan workplaces is widespread. Moreover, physical harassment was seen to be the most common form of harassment with peers being the most common source of harassment. Objectives of the Research • • • •

To examine the nature and the frequency of sexual harassments faced by Sri Lankan women in the work places. To uncover the main causes of the reluctance shown by harassed women to lodge formal complaints about sexual harassments. To identify the attitudes of Sri Lankan women towards sexual harassment at working place. To make the employers, human resource personnel and other relevant parties of the institutions where this research is carrying out aware that numerous factors have concealed and masked the real gravity of the problem. This is to be done by preparing a report on this and submitting it to the relevant management groups of those institutions.

Method of Data Collection Sexual harassment is a sensitive issue and approaching respondents ‘unknown’ to me might become a futile effort due to possible reluctance on the part of respondents to reveal information. Therefore, the proposed research would be based on a snowball sample. Persons known to the researcher would be used initially and they will be requested to name other people who have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace and would be willing to participate in the research. 100 individuals are initially chosen from selected agricultural and industrial groups for the research (non random sample). This industry selection is to be done by referring quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) conducted by the department of Census and statistics, Ministry of Interior. Data collection will be done through distributing a structured questionnaire among respondents.