Employers to be obliged to prevent sexual harassment at working place in Moldova

14:31 | 31.03.2023 Category: Social

Chisinau, 31 March /MOLDPRES/ - The parliament today approved, in the second reading, a draft on amendment of normative acts, which sees the combating of the phenomenon of harassment at the working place.

The draft aims to adjust the national legislation to the international standards, especially to the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).

Thus, the normative act proposes the completion of the Contraventional Code with provisions concerning the calling to account of employers for the non-observance of the obligation to undertake measures of prevention, examination and intervention, if acts of sexual harassment at the working place are found out. Also, employers who will obstruct the process of denouncing cases of sexual harassment at the working place will be sanctioned contraventionally. The non-establishment of the procedures needed for combating the sexual harassment at the working place will be sanctioned with fines worth from 3,000 to 4,200 lei, imposed to private people and between 10,500 and 13,500 lei – to legal entities. At the same time, in case of people holding leadership positions, the contraventional punishment might reach up to 10,500 lei. At the same time, the Contraventional Code was completed with norms which envisage possibility to call to account for deeds of victimization.

Another provision of the draft regards the completion of the Labour Code, of the Law on the State Labour Inspectorate and of the Law on trade unions with norms in the field of prevention, consideration and settlement of the sexual harassment at the working place. Thus, the State Labour Inspectorate will check the existence of the measures of prevention and combating the phenomenon of discrimination, sexual harassment, victimization at the working place, as well as their observance in the internal regulations of the institutions.

Photo: Parliament

Any material published on the website of the Public Institution ’’A.I.S. Moldpres’’ (Moldpres News Agency) is intellectual peoperty of the Agency, protected by the copyright. The taking over or/and use of these materials will be made only with the Agency’s agreement and with compulsory reference to source.