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What is Sexual Harassment?

All speech, attitude or other conduct of a sexual nature that occur without any physical contact and consent of the individual and which do not need to be continuous.

Examples of Sexual Harassment

  • Verbal harassment, making sexually explicit jokes or offering compliments or saying sexually explicit slangs,
  • Showing unusual insistent behavior for flirting,
  • Disturbing a person with sending or showing pornographic materials,
  • Forcing a person to intimacy or to sexual intercourse by threatening her/him with the use or the spread of audio or visual recordings without consent,
  • Recording and spreading a person’s sexually explicit behaviors and spreading without her/his consent,
  • Asking questions or spreading rumors about a person’s sexual life,
  • Making discriminatory remarks or engaging in discriminatory acts about a person’s sex, sexual orientation or sexual identity,
  • Engaging in behaviors resulting from acts of threat, blackmail, insult etc.,
  • Stalking,
  • Disturbing a person with unwanted glance and gestures,
  • Sending sexually explicit messages or requests through phone, e-mail or similar communication tools,
  • Disturbing a person by sending sexually explicit messages or requests via electronic media including social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc. ; or by sharing visual or audio recordings or by spreading rumors about a person’s sexual life without her/his consent,
  • Insisting on sexual intercourse.

 

What is Sexual Assault?

It is the violation of a person’s bodily integrity with sexually explicit behaviors without a person’s consent.

Sexual assault can occur in two ways:

First, sexual assault can occur by violation of a person’s bodily integrity.

Examples may include hugging, caressing, touching, tweaking on the cheek, kissing, holding hands and caressing one’s hair.

Second, assault occurs by violation of a person’s bodily integrity through penetration with a sexual organ or any other object, in other words: rape.

What is Stalking?

All sexual attitudes and conduct that create feelings of physical or psychological fear or helplessness in the person and keep her/him under pressure by causing them worry about their safety through physical, verbal, written acts or through the use of any type of communication means.

What is Retaliation?

Complicating a person’s work or education life in an implicit or explicit fashion for purposes of revenge because the person has turned down an act or proposal of a sexual or romantic nature, or because the person believes that she/he has been sexually harassed or assaulted and wants to proceed or has already proceeded with complaint processes, or because the person wants to proceed or has already proceeded with complaint processes regarding a sexual harassment or assault she/he has witnessed.

Examples of Retaliation

  • If the person exposed to retaliation is a student; lowering the grade, ignoring, blocking or leaving questions unanswered, rejecting academic meeting requests, spreading rumors that may cause adverse effects on the person, making or preventing access to academic and financial support (e.g. scholarship, reference letter, etc.)
  • If the person exposed to retaliation is an employee; preventing the person’s promotion, ignoring, preventing his/her professional development, rejecting professional meeting requests, spreading rumors that may cause adverse effects on the person, creating difficulties in using his/her personal rights (such as annual leave use, overtime pay, etc.), forcing the person to do jobs that are not included in his/her job description.

What is Promise of Reward?

Promising privileges that will allow a person to gain unjust benefits such as rewards, promotion, grades or similar upon her/his acceptance of an act or request of a sexual or romantic nature.
That a person will gain unjust benefits is a promise of reward if he/she accepts a sexual behavior or offer.

Promise of Reward Examples

  • If the person to whom the sexual behavior or proposal was made is a student; promising to raise his/her grade, to provide academic or financial support, to share exam questions
  • If the person to whom the sexual behavior or proposal is made is an employee; promising to provide a promotion or salary increase, to alleviate the workload and to shorten the working time.