The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will today host an event for senior leaders and equality, diversity and inclusion practitioners from across Britain’s armed forces and police and fire services.
The Equality Exchange Event will focus on tackling workplace sexual harassment and the new preventative duty for all employers which came into force on 26 October 2024.
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 introduced a legal obligation on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff.
In advance of this change in the law, the EHRC published updated technical guidance for employers on the steps they can take to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Delegates from a mixture of national professional bodies, individual forces and services, trade unions and employee networks will attend today’s event. It aims to improve delegates’ understanding of their legal duties to protect their workforce and how they can put the EHRC’s guidance into practice.
The event is part of a sustained programme of work the EHRC is undertaking to help address sex and race discrimination in police and fire services and the armed forces in England, Scotland and Wales.
The EHRC’s uniformed services work programme was set up in response to several highly critical independent reports highlighting harassment and victimisation of primarily female and ethnic minority officers.
A spokesperson for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said:
"People working in uniformed services dedicate their lives to serving others, often facing risks at work on our behalf. They have a right to do their vital work without fear of harassment, discrimination or victimisation.
"We know these are unique workplaces. But as public bodies with particular duties under the Equality Act, our uniformed services should be standard-bearers for protecting their employees.
"And like every other employer across the country, our uniformed services also have a new duty to be proactively protecting their workers from sexual harassment. This change in the law aims to improve workplace cultures, which all too often can contribute to the harassment officers still experience.
"As Britain’s equality regulator, we are working to address these issues with uniformed services’ inspectorates, ombudsmen and national bodies across England, Scotland and Wales. "
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