One third of Japanese working women sexually harassed: Study

Tokyo: A Japanese government study has found nearly a third of working women who responded to a survey reported being sexually harassed on the job, such as unwanted physical contact or being subjected to degrading comments.

The study, the first of its kind, was released today. It did not give a margin of error. It examined responses from more than 9,600 women employees, submitted by mail or online. The response rate was 18 per cent.

Of the respondents, 29 per cent said they had suffered sexual harassment.

The most common harassment was having their appearance or age became the focus of conversation, at 54 per cent. The next most common was unwanted touching at 40 per cent, followed by sexually related questions at 38 per cent.

Twenty-seven per cent were asked out for meals and dates.