Information about Harassment

Harassment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. When the term is used in a legal sense it refers to behaviors that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society. Sexual harassment refers to persistent and unwanted sexual advances, typically in the workplace, where the consequences of refusing are potentially very disadvantaging to the victim.

History

United States

In 1964, the United States Congress passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination at work on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex. This later became the legal basis for early harassment law. The practice of developing workplace guidelines prohibiting harassment was pioneered in 1969, when the U.S. Department of Defense drafted a Human Goals Charter, establishing a policy of equal respect for both sexes. In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986): the U.S. Supreme Court recognized harassment suits against employers for promoting a sexually hostile work environment. In 2006, U.S.A. President George W. Bush signed a law which prohibited the transmission of annoying messages over the Internet (aka spamming) without disclosing the sender's true identity.^[1]

Canada

In 1983, the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibited sexual harassment in workplaces under federal jurisdiction.

United Kingdom

In the UK there are a number of laws protecting people from harassment including the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. For a fuller description of the laws on harassment in the UK see this page.

Ambiguity

Both because the term is used in common English, and because where the term is defined by law, the law varies by jurisdiction, it is difficult to provide any exact definition that is accepted everywhere.

In some cultures, for instance, simply stating a political opinion can be seen as unwarranted and a deliberate attempt to intimidate — in a totalitarian society any such statement could be interpreted as an attempt to involve someone in rebel activity or implicate them in same, with the implication that if they refuse, they are putting their own life in danger. More usually, some label such as "anti-social" or related to treason is used to label such behaviour — it being treated as an offense against the state not the person. This resembles the use of psychiatry to imprison dissidents which is common in many countries.

Another example is that under some versions of Islamic Law merely insulting Islam is considered to be a harassment of all believers, and in Japan insulting any faith is usually considered taboo and has legal sanctions. Because of these variations, there is no way even within one society to provide a truly neutral definition of harassment.

Categories

However, broad categories of harassment often recognized in law include:

• Legal harassment - Legal actions against an individual or a group, for example SLAPP suits.
• Sexual harassment (with a much stricter definition in the workplace)
• Psychological harassment - repetitive unprovoked intrusions or interruptions
• Group psychological harassment
• Hate speech - comments proveably false or irrelevant which express or encourage hate towards a particular group - another legal

Types of harassments

There are a number of harassments that fall into this category.

Bullying
Harassment that can occur on the playground, school, in the workforce or any other place. Usually physical and psychological harassing behavior perpetrated against an individual, by one or more persons.

Psychological harassment
This is humiliating or abusive behavior that lowers a person’s self-esteem or causes them torment. This can take the form of verbal comments, actions or gestures. Falling into this category is workplace mobbing.

Community Based Harassment - stalking by a group against an individual using repeated distractions that the individual is sensitized to, such as clicking an ink pen. See the following website: [1]

Racial harassment
The targeting of an individual because of their race or ethnicity. The harassment's include words, deeds, and actions, that are specifically designed to make the target feel degraded due to their race of origin or ethnicity.

Religious harassment
Verbal, psychological or physical harassment's used against targets because they choose to practice a specific religion. Religious harassment can also include forced and involuntary conversions.

Sexual harassment
Harassment that can happen anywhere but is most common in the workplace, and schools. It involves unwanted and unwelcome, words, deeds, actions, gestures, symbols, or behaviors of a sexual nature that make the target feel uncomfortable. Gender and sexual orientation harassment fall into this family.

Stalking
The unauthorized following and surveillance of an individual, to the extent that the persons privacy is unacceptably intruded upon, and the victim fears for their safety.

Mobbing
Violence committed directly or indirectly by a loosely affiliated and organized group of individuals to punish or even execute a person for some alleged offense without a lawful trial. The 'offense' can range from a serious crime like murder or simple expression of ethnic, cultural, or religious attitudes. The issue of the victim's actual guilt or innocence is often irrelevant to the mob, since the mob relies on contentions that are unverifiable, unsubstantiated, or completely fabricated.

Hazing
To persecute, harass, or torture in a deliberate, calculated, planned, manner. Typically the targeted individual is a subordinate, for example, a fraternity pledge, a first-year military cadet, or somebody who is considered 'inferior' or an 'outsider'. Hazing is illegal in many instances.

Backlash
Backlash or 'victim blaming' occurs when the harasser or other people in the environment blame the victim for the harassment, or the resulting controversies and conflicts after the harassment is reported or discovered. Backlash results when people erroneously believe the victim could stop the harassment if they really tried, or that the victim must have done something to cause the harassment. The victim may be accused of trying to get attention, covering for incompetence, or in cases where the harassment is proven, lying about the extent of the effects. "Old school" attitudes about certain kinds of harassment remain and there are in many circumstances social pressure for victims to "keep their mouths shut" about abuse or suffer the consequences.

Police Harassment
Unfair treatment conducted by law officials including but not limited to excessive force,profiling, threats, coercion, and racial, ethnic, religious, gender/sexual, age, or other forms of discrimination.

Colloquial speech

In some contexts of colloquial speech, the word "harassment" and its derivatives can mean in a playful manner "bothering". In computer gaming contexts, "harassment" might constitute provocative or annoying actions in the game. Harassment in strategy games may also mean early attacks aimed to stunt an opponent's growth of either economy or technology. In these contexts, the severity of the terminology is much less intense, and does not carry the same connotations as the legal definitions.

References

1. ^ Declan McCullagh. Create an e-annoyance, go to jail. CNET news. January 9, 2006

See also

• Harassment by computer
• Psychological abuse
• Psychological warfare
• Cyber bullying
• Hazing

External links

• Workplace Bulling and Mobbing Resources
• Various forms of harassment
• Stop Hazing
• Weaver v NATFHE In the Weaver v NATFHE race discrimination case, an Industrial Tribunal upheld a union’s decision not to assist a woman lecturer, at Bournville College, Birmingham, who brought a case of racial harassment against a fellow worker in a college of further education because he could lose his job. The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the decision and extended the decision to cover complaints of sexist harassment.
• Harassment Backlash, Retaliation, and Victim-blaming
• Prevention of violence and harassment at work, EU-OSHA

society is a grouping of individuals which is characterized by common interests and may have distinctive culture and institutions. Members of a society may be from different ethnic groups.
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Sexual harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. It includes a range of behavior from mild transgressions and annoyances to serious abuses, which can even involve forced sexual activity.
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Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, July 2, 1964) was landmark legislation in the United States that outlawed segregation in the US schools and public places.
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Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986), marked the United States Supreme Court's recognition of certain forms of sexual harassment as a violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, and established the standards for analyzing whether conduct was
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George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. Bush was first elected in the 2000 presidential election, and reelected for a second term in the 2004 presidential election.
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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Organizations:

• Aka in burmese martial arts
• a.k.a. Cartoon, Canadian animation company
• Aga Khan Academy
• Alpha Kappa Alpha
• American Kickboxing Academy
• Australian Koi Association, a group which promotes the protection, preservation and improvement of Koi in

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Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search
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This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved.
Protection is not an endorsement of the current [ version] ([ protection log]).
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The Canadian Human Rights Act is a statute originally passed by the Government of Canada in 1977 with the express goal of extending the law to ensure equal opportunity to individuals who may be victims of discriminatory practices based on a set prohibited grounds such as gender,
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The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was an Act of Parliament brought into law by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the existing law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights and in greater penalties
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This page deals with harassment in terms of UK law. It is intended to outline the procedure behind making and investigating harassment claims in the workplace.

Introduction

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jurisdiction (from the Latin ius, iuris meaning "law" and dicere meaning "to speak") is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to
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Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. Although the term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, politics is observed in all human group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious
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Totalitarianism is a term employed by some scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.
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rebellion is, in the most general sense, a refusal to accept authority. It may therefore be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours from civil disobedience to a violent organized attempt to destroy established authority.
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Dissocial personality disorder
Classification & external resources

ICD-10 F60.2
ICD-9 301.7

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by an individual's common disregard for social rules, norms, and
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Crimes

---

Classes of crime
Infraction  · Misdemeanor  · Felony
Summary  · Indictable  · Hybrid

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Against the person
Assault  · Battery
Extortion  · Harassment
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Psychiatry is a branch of medicine which exists to study, prevent, and treat mental disorders in humans.^[1][2][3] The art and science of the clinical application of psychiatry has been considered a bridge between the social world and those who are
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For the Pearl Jam song, see .

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively opposes an established opinion, policy, or structure.
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Sharia (Arabic: شريعة transliteration: Šarī‘ah
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Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
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Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism.
If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
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Sexual harassment is harassment or unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. It includes a range of behavior from mild transgressions and annoyances to serious abuses, which can even involve forced sexual activity.
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Psychology (from Greek: Literally "talk about the soul" (from logos)) is both an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.
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Discrimination

Major forms
Racism
Sexism
Homophobia
Ageism
Antisemitism
Islamophobia
Ableism

Manifestations
Slavery · Racial profiling
Hate speech · Hate crime
Genocide · Ethnocide · Holocaust
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<noinclude></noinclude> Bullying is the act of intentionally causing unhappiness to others through verbal harassment, physical assault, or other more subtle methods of coercion such as manipulation. There is currently no legal definition of bullying.
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Mobbing is a new term referring to a group behavioural phenomenon in workplaces and a type of animal behaviour. In a different sense, it is a criminal offence in Scotland.

Mobbing

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace
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Stalking (from Middle English stalk: from Old English bestealcian; akin to Old English stelan to steal) is a legal term for repeated harassment or other forms of invasion of a person's privacy in a manner that causes fear to its target.
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Mobbing is a new term referring to a group behavioural phenomenon in workplaces and a type of animal behaviour. In a different sense, it is a criminal offence in Scotland.

Mobbing

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace
..... Click the link for more information.