Law On Harassment In The Workplace In Malaysia
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a serious misconduct as it belittles an employee s honour reputation and dignity.
Law on harassment in the workplace in malaysia. As 2020 fast approaches malaysian women still face challenges of gender inequality which is symptomatic of the patriarchal system. Jason ong is the assemblyperson for kebun bunga. Silicon valley is currently grappling with backlash arising from a culture of sexual harassment as more women are coming forward to share their experiences of harassment.
Malaysia will certainly benefit from having a sexual harassment act based on its own unique cultural and social background. Sexual harassment is covered under part xva employment act 1955 but it has limitations. Most recently cheryl yeoh the former ceo of the malaysian global innovation and creativity centre magic alleged that she was sexually assaulted by an investor you can read her account of the.
As such the law does not provide an exhaustive list as to what amounts to sexual harassment so as to cater for all types of harassments. To start with there are no specific laws in malaysia that is made to combat sexual harassment. It takes place quite frequently and it seems that the objective is that the employer engages in certain subtle tactics in the hope that the employee will become so fed up with the situation that he she resigns.
As part of the growing recognition to the seriousness of this issue the federal court has also recently introduced the tort of sexual harassment into the malaysian legal landscape which means victims of sexual harassment can now sue their harassers for. Sexual harassment laws in malaysia. In june 2016 the federal court of malaysia in mohd ridzwan abdul razak v asmah hj mohd nor made a landmark decision in introducing the tort of sexual harassment into our legal and judicial system.
Harassment in the workplace is an often complained of problem in the workplace. A law could also mandate that all companies have in place proper mechanisms to protect employees and deal with harassment. Poha is intended to strengthen harassment laws in singapore and captures a variety of harassment behaviours be it blatant or subtle sexual or non sexual and even online behaviour.
Since 2000 wcc has been spearheading the joint action group for gender equality jag to campaign for a sexual harassment law for malaysia. Sexual harassment at the workplace in malaysia features the malaysian courts approach towards the subject matter with reference to statutory provisions common law and islamic law. An employee of lembaga tabung haji lodged a complaint to the ceo of the company alleging sexual harassment by her supervisor.
Sexual harassment is covered under part xva. Sexual harassment laws in malaysia. Recently malaysia was shocked by two revelations of obscene physical conduct towards women.
19 july 2017. The first was a claim made by former ceo of magic cheryl yeoh against venture capitalist dave mcclure and next were pictures of men doing obscene acts on the shell cutout lady being shared on social media.
