It reduces productivity and increases the rate of sick leave and absenteeism among affected employees. Moreover, many female employees who face sexual harassment choose to resign from their jobs rather than fight or endure the offensive conditions. This results in a higher rate of employee turnover with all the associated costs in training and lost production. .
1.0 THE HISTORY OF CODE OF PRACTICE - SEXUAL HARASMENT IN MALAYSIA.
i. 1997 .
MTUC began to set up a special unit to handle sexual harassment cases in Penang. Penang is a state, which its main occupation provider is in the manufacturing sector. Because of manufacturing sector is one of the sectors that have a large probability of sexual harassment occurrence. .
The main objective is to attract as many manufacturing companies to sign the special declaration related to sexual harassment as one of the preventive and control measures. It includes a special clause regarding to sexual harassment in the employment contract or the collective agreement.
ii. 1998.
In the past 3 years, the Industrial Relations department handled only 30 cases, while 20 were reported to the labor department. Most cases go unreported for fear of embarrassment or loss of jobs. .
A survey done among the northern government servants via questionnaires indicates that 44% of male and 47% of female administrators had been sexually harassed at work and the harassers were often co-workers, rather than supervisors. .
iii. 1999.
The government has no plans to formulate a special law to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace at the moment as this could create various problems particularly in terms of implementation and enforcement as it felt that self-regulation was more effective compared to the implementation of a special law. .
However, there is the need to introduce a set of guideline, as there were no established procedures at present, which could guide victims on how to deal with sexual harassment problems.