Companies paying to silence women in sexual harassment cases

Lynette Seebaran-Suite. chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission of T&T, speaks at a domestic violence symposium,  hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI, St Augustine, yesterday.
Lynette Seebaran-Suite. chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission of T&T, speaks at a domestic violence symposium, hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI, St Augustine, yesterday.

EQUAL Opportunity Commission (EOC) chairman Lynette Seebaran-Suite says companies are paying women to be silent in sexual harassment cases.

She was speaking yesterday as various NGOs and entities met with the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Human Rights, Equality and Diversity on an Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in the Workplace at the Parliament building.

She said on the question of how the National Workplace Policy on Sexual Harassment related to the employer, it was not about the content of the individual company's policy, but the real issue was the commitment of management to eradicate and deal with sexual harassment.

"Because usually the power dynamic is that perhaps it is a superior officer who is preying upon a junior. And no matter how well articulated the protocol is, if it is that the workplace values the manager more than the employee, what usually happens – and that is the experience in TT, and we have a number of cases right now – is the employee (who) complains is 'managed out,' because the employee is of less value to the organisation."

Seebaran-Suite said there was also the big issue of non-disclosure agreements.

"Large employers have pools of money which they have there to pay off women who have been harassed, and then the women are forced to keep silent, and the harasser continues to harass and the women goes away silently and disappears."

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"Companies paying to silence women in sexual harassment cases"

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