Almost 40 percent of women and nearly 20 percent of men at the Department of Veterans Affairs said they have received unwanted sexual attention during the past year, according to an internal survey.
Former VA Secretary Jesse Brown ordered the survey, which was distributed to a random sample of 30,000 of the VA's 232,000 employees, to determine the effectiveness of the department's "zero tolerance" sexual harassment policy.
Employees were asked to say whether they had experienced any of 30 different kinds of unwanted sexual attention. The most common scenario, reported by 19 percent of women and 7 percent of men, was someone putting his or her arm around an employee without consent.
Other situations identified with the greatest frequency by respondents included: "made unwanted sexual remarks or noises, such as whistling;" "stared at sexual parts of your body;" "called you names like 'honey,' 'hunk,' 'mama,' or 'stud' after being told to stop;" and "gave you a neck massage without your consent."
Respondents who had been the subject of unwanted sexual attention were asked to identify the two incidents they considered "most serious." Five percent of the women and 1 percent of men selected "made unwanted sexual remarks or noises" as the most serious incident, and another 5 percent of women and 2 percent of men selected "stared at sexual parts of your body." More than 80 percent of those surveyed said the "most serious" comment or action had partially or completely stopped.
More than 80 percent of the respondents said they have seen and understood VA's sexual harassment policy, know how to file a complaint and participated in VA's sexual harassment training.
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