Harassment Policy
Sexual harassment in the work place is often thought of as happening in an office type setting around the water cooler; not in a farm or agriculture setting. However, sexual harassment is not limited to any one line of work in particular, and while incidents of sexual abuse in agriculture are considered isolated, female farm workers and their employers should be aware that the possibilities of harassment exists and put sexual harassment prevention measures into place. Many times victims of sexual harassment fear losing their employment if they come forward. Since the majority of female farm workers are more often than not undocumented immigrants the fear of retaliation for reporting such abuse is two fold. Farmers need to provide all their workers with harassment policies written in the language they understand. Any reports of abuse should be treated with the utmost of privacy and acted upon swiftly and diligently. Farmers need to be aware of the working relationship between their managers or foremen and their workers; the cost of being unaware could be devastating for their female employees and costly indeed for them.