If Hong Kong legislators have their way, it will soon be illegal to sexually harass local flight attendants, even if such harassment occurs outside of the Chinese city.
Lawmakers next week are considering amending the city’s Sex Discrimination Ordinance to fix a loophole in the law that has for years left hundreds of thousands of service workers vulnerable. While service workers like flight attendants are banned from sexually harassing customers, under the law, customers aren’t prevented from sexually harassing workers.
Flight attendants at the city’s flagship airline, Cathay Pacific, had previously complained that the pencil skirts of their uniforms were overly tight and uncomfortable. The flight attendant union, which represents 6,000 workers, also expressed concern that the uniform’s white blouses were so short that they would occasionally expose the midriffs of workers and called on Cathay Pacific for a redesign. (The airline responded by saying that crew were welcome to trade in their uniforms for different sizes if they felt the fit was wrong.)
A February survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission, an independent statutory body, found that more than 25% of Hong Kong flight attendants had been sexually harassed in the previous year. Examples of sexual harassment cited by the survey included unwanted physical contact and sexual jokes or requests for sexual favors.
Among those who had been sexually harassed, only half of them reported their cases to superiors or lodged complaints, according to survey’s findings.
