Bulgarian victims of sexual harassment in the workplace can now share their stories completely anonymously here:
https://www.teamworkproject.eu/bg/%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0/
The aim of the TEAMWORK - Team Response to Sexual Harassment in the Workplace project is to provide a space for survivors to speak freely about the violence they have experienced. In our country, although quite a few signals reach the Commission for Protection against Discrimination or the court, there is still a stigma around the problem and it is hardly talked about it in the public space.
The information provided by the victims or perpetrators will be anonymous. Two letters will be used to identify the victim and two for the abuser (eg VL and GD) and they do not have to match the real names of the people involved in the story. Posts will not be uploaded automatically: after submission, they will be reviewed and edited, if necessary, by webmasters to ensure compliance with the requirement of anonymity and to avoid discriminatory or hate speech.
Thanks to these personal stories, we will not only raise public awareness of the problem, but we will also show many other victims of this type of harassment that there are others like them and there is someone to turn to. The platform also contains an information sheet on the legislation related to sexual harassment in Bulgaria and information on the competent authorities that we can turn to when we have a problem.
Last year, the TEAMWORK project conducted a national survey of employees and employers on the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace, which showed that many of them do not understand exactly what this type of abuse is and what are the mechanisms for protection of abuse. Workers lack awareness and businesses lack sensitivity on the subject.
This is why the CSCD team conducts capacity building seminars on sexual harassment in the workplace for workers and human resources managers. In the coming months, workshops will be organized to discuss the results of the study with stakeholders and look for possible solutions to the problem. The aim is for the various players to propose policies or legal actions and methods of their implementation so that they are at the service of victims of sexual harassment in the workplace.
An information event for the media and managers will also be organized, where they will receive more information about the specific proposal for action and the commitment made by the employers' organizations and institutions.