VICTIMS of sexual harassment at the workplace, who conceal their abuse, are stalling progress in fighting this cancer.
Several employers have stepped up efforts to protect their workforce from sexual harassment at the workplace.
Some employers have created platforms, which victims can use, to expose these sex predators.
Junior staff members and students are mainly the victims of abuse.
The sad reality is that most of them are dying in silence.
Most of the victims open up when they are either dismissed or have been reassigned to other stations and they are not happy with the process.
In some cases, victims conceal sexual harassment to save their jobs.
This has led to junior staff or students suffering a lot at the hands of rogue supervisors.
This should not be tolerated if we are to make the workplace a better place.
Since we spend most of our time at the workplace, surely workers should not wait to be fired and abused to gather the courage to open up against abuse.
This could be the case with a Gweru supervisor whose adulterous affair with a married employee was the main story of our edition of this newspaper yesterday.
The case exploded after a recording of their phone conversation was leaked.
The employee was fired after she was accused of theft at the retail outlet in Gweru.
Other employees were also fired for similar theft cases.
However, this particular employee felt the supervisor should have saved her job because of their adulterous relationship.
She feels that the worst case scenario should have seen him use his muscle, at the company, to have her transferred to another area.
There are reports that she was probably not the only one who suffered similar abuse at the hands of the supervisor.
We are not saying the woman, or the women, are saints.
Far from it, they are also guilty of having entered unholy alliances in which they compromised themselves for the sake of getting jobs, or favours, at this shop.
They failed to respect their husbands and cheated on them just to ensure they remained in their jobs.
But, what is very clear is that the supervisor has a bigger moral blameworthiness because he was the superior figure in this network and was the one luring these women into his web of shame.
Workplace romance should never be tolerated since it is known to be toxic.
The continued use of explicit or implicit language, with sexual overtones, should be condemned in its strongest terms.
Promises to reward employees in exchange of sexual favours should never be tolerated.
Sex predators, who target junior or vulnerable staff in exchange of sexual favours, should be named and shamed.
The workplace should not be taken as a dating hub or a place where sex predators can easily catch their prey.
The victims of sexual harassment at work placeneed to speak out.