Sexual abuse legislation at work is changing
Across the Creative Industries, its long been acknowledged we have an issue with cases of sexual abuse and harassment and the ability to absolve ourselves of responsibility and ignore the issue have been extensive. But from Autumn 2024, that's set to change.
Over the last few years the industry has gone through a period of huge evaluation of its issues, with abuse coming out as a priority across the sector as a whole. And whilst some parts of the sector have already began to look at how they tackle it, this legislation change may be welcomed by those who feel there are many gaps in the current legislation and feel powerless to make changes without the legal backing behind them.
The new legislation updates the Equality Act 2010 placing a pre-emptive duty on employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of employees in the course of their employment and extends to the self employed.
A couple of points to flag immediately: the definition of “employee” in the Equality Act is wider than that used in other pieces of employment legislation and extends to workers and some self-employed individuals, as well as your regular payrolled employee. Furthermore, “in the course of their employment” covers activities outside the workplace, such as work drinks or off-site events; particularly relevant to the conferences in the games industry where we have seen these issues perpetuate at their most toxic. Both are points to bear in mind when considering what practical steps employers should be taking to comply with this duty (see below).
In terms of the behaviour this change is intended to address, the new provisions use the existing definition of sexual harassment in the Equality Act, namely unwanted conduct of a
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