Much of my practice as an employment lawyer deals with harassment in the workplace. Some of those cases involve sexual harassment of employees, and a smaller subset deal with sexual abuse of employees. Almost all of those cases, with the rarest of exceptions, involve women.

Preparing these claims can be triggering, as I am the victim of sexual abuse myself. I imagine there is a grim liberation for our clients as they watch those responsible for terrorizing them brought to justice. I was a young lady when my abuser died, so I was robbed of that opportunity.

In representing some of the most high-profile sexual abuse and harassment cases in the country, we have learned a great deal of what employers are doing wrong. Our frame of reference is our practice.

Employers in Canada are not prepared to deal with sexualized allegations in the workplace.

As a starting point employers must understand that standard protocols around how to remedy misconduct rarely provide any assistance when you are dealing with harassment or abuse of a sexualized nature.

Employers need to get trauma informed. Following sexual harassment or assault, victims report that they sometimes regress to denial and try to “move on” for a period of time. Others spend a great deal of time trying to understand whether or not they were actually abused or harassed. There are a slew of reasons that explain why it might take time to report these allegations. Employers should listen to all of them before making any hasty findings on timeliness. Employees cannot be attacked for failing to report sexualized misconduct in a timely manner. I only came forward with my abuse at the age of 35, despite the abuse taking place when I was a very young girl. What we know about due diligence in reporting misconduct does not apply to sexualized allegations.