Can Translation Deter Sexual Harassment? You Bet.

When you think of document translation, harassment is probably the last thing that comes to mind but in this day and age, it’s a delicate area that needs to be addressed not just for English speaking employees, but everyone. Thinking internationally, it’s also essential to make sure offices beyond the U.S. borders are dealt with properly. It’s rather common for us at TSI to translate anti-harassment human resources documentation for clients across the globe.

As of late the national news has been focusing on the issues of sexual harassment. However in the broad scope of employee relationships, anti-harassment covers a wide range of behaviors including all forms of discrimination and conduct that can be considered harassing, coercive, or disruptive.  The task at hand for companies at home in the USA, as well as abroad is to prohibit any actions, words, jokes, or comments based on a person's sex, race, color, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or any legally protected characteristic. The latter includes gender reassignment, belief, civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.

Specific examples of harassment include:

• Inappropriate language, including jokes, negative stereotyping, slurs, graffiti, cartoons, or other verbal or visual conduct, directed towards a person or a group based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender preference, age, mental or physical disability, or any legally protected status.
• Conduct showing hostility toward another or a group based on race, color, religion, national origin, mental or physical disability, or gender identity.
• Verbal abuse, offensive gestures, leering, sexually degrading words, offensive comments, jokes, innuendoes, or sexual content added to work related conversations, and other sexually oriented statements.
• Graphic, degrading, condescending, or suggestive comments about an individual's appearance.
• Unwanted flirtations, propositions, or physical contact or any threats of undesired contact such as repeated invitations in which the recipient has indicated that he or she is not interested.
• The display, downloading, or viewing of sexually suggestive or otherwise offensive materials, language, drawings, posters, or pictures produced physically or through computer e-mail.
• Improper questions about an employee's private life.
• Circulating, downloading, displaying or disseminating material (electronically or otherwise) which ridicules a gender or which is sexually suggestive, or otherwise offensive regardless of whether it is directed at specific individuals.
• Retaliation against an employee for complaining about prohibited behaviors.

The list above accounts for the majority of harassment issues in the USA, however what may be acceptable in this country may well be totally out-of-bounds elsewhere. It’s important for U.S. based companies to check with the proper authorities where they have offices abroad in order to tailor their anti-harassment policies to include behaviors that are not permitted in the host country. When a conflict occurs in this area the response “We didn’t know” is not an acceptable or appropriate answer.  Improper handling of sexual harassment accusations can lead to costly legal battles and sometimes public relations nightmares.

We have experience translating manuals and documentation dealing directly with human resources training for employees, and employee manuals relating to anti-harassment guidelines.  If your company has non-english speaking employees or international offices, feel free to contact us for a quote. Handling this now can avoid costly mistakes down the road.