Almost a third of Kiwi female lawyers have been sexually harassed in the workplace, survey finds

May 30, 2018

That’s the finding of a Law Society survey that’s prompted an investigation to see what needs to be done to force change.

Almost a third of female lawyers practising in New Zealand have been sexually harassed in the workplace, a Law Society survey has found .

The survey found that one on 10 women could recall five or more incidents and while harassment was most commonly experienced at work, almost half of the women said harassment had occurred at a work event.

In the past five years, 12 per cent of female lawyers had experienced physical contact or sexual assault while a third in total had experienced crude or offensive behaviour.

The legal profession was surveyed in the wake of the Russell McVeagh scandal.

Nearly one in five lawyers, 31 per cent for women and five per cent for men, had been sexually harassed, based on the Human Rights Commission definition.

Twenty-eight per cent of lawyers have witnessed sexual harassment in a legal environment during their working life.

Only 12 per cent of lawyers who had been sexually harassed said they had formally complained.

Almost 40 per cent of lawyers who had been sexually harassed said the experience had affected their mental wellbeing and 32 per cent said it affected their job prospects.

The survey was commissioned in response to the increasing number of women in the legal profession who had complained about sexual harassment.  

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