Sexual harassment: criminological and criminal-legal aspects

The relevance of scientific research of the problem of sexual harassment is determined by its active discussion in the materials of foreign and Russian press. The purpose of the present article is the assessment of the danger of sexual harassment in various areas: home and work. The subject of the analysis defined the choice of the following methods of research: formal and logical, comparative and legal, statistical, documentary and sociological. The author conducted a survey of 342 residents of St. Petersburg, studied court practice about the responsibility for coercion to commit acts of sexual character. In the article on the basis of various empirical researches, including that of the author, the prevalence of sexual harassment lying outside the coercion to commit acts of sexual character, which can have a place both at home and at workplace, is shown. Domestic sexual harassment has a clear victimization aspect which is looked through in a thoughtless and provocative behavior of its victims. A demonstration of such behavior during the FIFA World Cup-2018 shows that all legal prohibitions of domestic sexual harassment are senseless. At the same time, sexual harassment of the head or employer at a workplace is characterized by the increased public danger since it has a long psycho traumatic influence on the victim, often drives it into a corner, encroaches on the civil rights and freedoms, and undermines authority of the government power. Therefore such sexual harassment has to be forbidden in a penal order. In many countries (India, Spain, the Algerian Republic, the Republic of Kenya, etc.) there is special criminal liability for sexual harassment in a workplace. This reflects a worldwide tendency to strengthen counteraction to discrimination of the personality and protection of rights of the person and citizen. The existing criminal legislation of Russia and practice of its application do not provide adequate criminal and legal counteraction to sexual harassment. The author proposes to add the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with the article "Sexual harassment" establishing criminal liability for sexual harassment during a recruiting period or in a workplace that answers an urgent call of legal protection of the victims of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment in a workplace encroaches not only on sexual freedom of the person, but also on constitutional right to work. Its probability constantly increases taking into account the predicted tendencies of employment of youth.

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