The EOC’s recent release of the “Territory-wide Representative Survey on Sexual Harassment in Hong Kong 2021” report has raised concerns about sexual harassment of young people, as those aged between 18 and 34 were particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment in the workplace and online according to the survey.

Indeed, the EOC raised the flag about the issue back in 2019, by releasing findings of the “Break the Silence: Territory-wide Study on Sexual Harassment of University Students in Hong Kong” (“Break the Silence”), which showed that nearly one-fourth (23%) of university students were sexually harassed 12 months before the survey. Over the past three years or so, the EOC has been working with the nine universities that took part in the survey on strengthening their effort to eliminate sexual harassment in the campus.

To follow up on the work progress of these institutions, the EOC organised a roundtable on 27 May 2022, which offered a platform for the universities to share experiences and challenges in tackling sexual harassment, and discuss how they could strengthen governance, policies and complaint-handling mechanism, and how to promote effectively anti-sexual harassment training and educational programmes.  

Joining the roundtable were EOC Chairperson Mr Ricky CHU Man-kin and Executive Director (Operations) Dr Ferrick CHU, who delivered opening and closing remarks respectively at the roundtable. On top of the nine universities, the EOC also invited representatives of other tertiary institutions and NGOs to join the roundtable so as to facilitate sharing of best practices. Also taking part were representatives of The Association for the Advancement of Feminism and sexuality education NGO Sticky Rice Love, with the former deliberating on the findings of its recently released, EOC-funded study on anti-sexual harassment policies of Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions, and the latter sharing innovative ways of promoting comprehensive sexuality education to youth.

As indicated in the follow-up report released by the EOC, overall the nine universities have implemented 13 out of the 16 recommendations made by the EOC in the 2019 Break the Silence study report, underlining their commitment to building a safe and harassment-free campus for university students. Especially notable is that all nine participating universities have implemented the EOC’s recommendations in relation to the complaint-handling mechanism, by laying out clearly the division of labour among departments explicitly for handling sexual harassment complaints, and specifying that confidentiality and protection against victimisation are guaranteed in their anti-sexual harassment policy and complaint procedures.

The EOC will continue to work with the universities on promoting anti-sexual harassment in the higher education sector, such as producing an online training module on prevention of sexual harassment for university students, which is expected to be launched later this year.

• Read the EOC’s press release
• Read the follow-up Report
• Visit EOC’s dedicated website on sexual harassment COMPASS