Definitions

Moral harassment in the public and private sectors

Moral harassment is manifested by repeated malicious acts: disagreeable remarks, intimidation, insults.

These acts lead to a serious deterioration in the victim’s working conditions and can :

undermine their rights and dignity,
alter their physical or mental health,
or jeopardise their professional future.

If you are a victim of psychological harassment in the public sector, you can benefit from the protection of the law, whether you are a permanent staff or a temporary staff or a trainee. Such behaviour is prohibited, even if there is no hierarchical link with the perpetrator.

Sexual harassment at work

Sexual harassment is characterised by the repeated imposition on a person of comments or behaviour with a sexual or sexist connotation, which :

undermine their dignity by being degrading or humiliating,
create an intimidating, hostile or offensive situation for them.

There is also sexual harassment when these comments or behaviours are imposed on the same victim by several people, in a concerted manner or at the instigation of one of them, even though each of these people has not acted repeatedly.

The same applies when the words or behaviour are imposed on the same victim, successively, by several persons who, even in the absence of concerted action, know that these words or behaviour are repetitive.

Furthermore, any form of serious pressure (even if not repeated) exercised with the real or apparent aim of obtaining a sexual act, for the benefit of the perpetrator or a third party, is also considered as sexual harassment. In the workplace, there is sexual harassment even if there is no hierarchical relationship between the victim and the perpetrator (between colleagues at the same level, in different departments, etc.)

If the perpetrator has had physical contact with the victim, it may be sexual assault, which is more severely punished.

Here is a very nice example about consent: