Sexual harassment
“No” means “no”!
Sexual harassment is not a misunderstanding!
Sexual harassment is not the fault of the victim!
Sexual harassment is sexualised violence and discrimination!
Sexual harassment has legal consequences and is punishable under service and/or disciplinary law!
Sexual harassment occurs when members of the University or third parties exhibit behaviour of a sexual character towards other members of the University or entrance applicants which injures a person’s dignity or aims at doing so, is regarded as being unwanted, inappropriate, degrading, insulting or offensive by the person concerned, and creates, or aims at creating, an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or ultimately disadvantaging work or study environment for that person.
Sexual harassment and sexualised violence affects all genders; however, women and lesbian, bisexual, homosexual, transgender and intersex people are more frequently affected.
Only the person concerned has the right to name sexual harassment as such, and to define whether a particular type of behaviour is unwanted, violates their boundaries and is sexually harassing.
Sexual harassment and sexualised violence can, for example, manifest in the following types of behaviour:
- Objectionable, degrading and/or insinuating remarks about a person’s appearance, body, private (sexual) life, relations and/or sexual orientation
- Pointedly sexualised remarks, jokes and ambiguous innuendos, insinuating and/or sexist jokes
- “Undressing someone with one’s eyes”, wolf whistles, staring and/or derogatory, provocative (sexualised) gestures
- Exhibitionist behaviour
- “Accidental”, targeted physical touching
- Unwanted invitations and/or gifts
- Creating, distributing and/or displaying sexualised and/or pornographic pictures or texts, posters of pin-ups in the work or study environment
- Stalking, pestering, following and/or spying on a person, constant attempts to make unwanted contact with a person, intruding on a person’s privacy
- Sexual harassment and sexualised violence combined with promises of advantages or threats of disadvantages relating to a person‘s work or studies
- Requesting physical closeness and sexual acts
- Sexual and physical assaults, coercion and rape
Sexual harassment and sexualised violence can never have a professional or pedagogic basis!
If you are being sexually harassed, please contact the Working Group on Equal Opportunities (AKG): we will help you! We also recommend that you write down a report from memory soon after the event, as this can be very helpful for subsequent proceedings.
If you witness sexual harassment and sexualised violence, don’t look away! Support the victims and refer them to the AKG.
We take rapid, discreet action!
We are legally required to maintain confidentiality!
