LAST month, Linda Wong Sau-yung, secretary of the Coalition Against Sexual Abuse, sent out a letter to 80 major companies and institutions asking whether they had a channel for staff to turn to for sexual harassment complaints. If they did not, the letterasked them to consider setting one up with the assistance of the Coalition.
The letter went to banks, newspapers, tertiary institutions, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Social Welfare Department, Swire, Sun Hung Kai and Hongkong Telecom. The only reply came from Hongkong Bank.
Because sexual harassment has only recently become an issue here, the Coalition had hoped that such a letter would encourage more companies to think about guidelines to protect women who work in their offices.
Recently, Ms Wong said, there has been a series of complaint calls to women's hotlines and office harassment cases reported in newspapers. In one complaint, a factory foreman asked a female worker to go to Kowloon Tong (famous for its love motels) after work. Others include smutty jokes, bumping into a woman and talking about a woman's figure.
''I feel disappointed about the lack of response,'' said Ms Wong. ''Perhaps companies don't know how to deal with sexual harassment.'' A spokesperson from the staff department of John Swire and Son Company Ltd, which claimed not to have received the letter, said: ''We have never received complaints from our staff about sexual harassment. If there had been any, they would have notified us. Since there have been no complaints, I don't think there is any need to set up a channel.'' But Ada Chung Lau Shin-yee, HongKong Bank's employee relations manager disagrees: ''There must be a channel for such complaints. The personnel department should listen to and attend to their cases.'' At Hongkong Bank, sexual harassment complaints can be made via a general personnel hotline which allows employees to vent their feelings and ask questions about the company (for example, on housing and medical benefits). Or complainants can go directlyto the personnel department.
Mrs Chung said that complaints so far had included leering at and touching women.
