People sometimes question why it took so long for a sexual harassment victim to come forward. Why didn’t they speak up sooner? If it was so serious, why are they only addressing it now? Are they just making the whole thing up?
Questions like these do a disservice to the victim. A delay in reporting doesn’t make their claims any less true and should not be held against them. There are actually some very clear reasons why it often takes workers time to come forward.
They don’t know if anyone will believe them
Often, workers don’t think that anyone else is going to believe their story, and they may even be worried about getting blamed themselves. This is why one worker coming forward sometimes leads to a wave of other workers with similar accusations. Once they see that it happened to someone else, they know at least one person will believe them, and they’re more likely to talk about it.
They don’t want to face retaliation
One of the biggest reasons that employees don’t come forward is just retaliation. Sexual harassment is often about power, and there’s usually a power imbalance between the two people. An employee may not speak up because they think that they will just get fired or even blacklisted in the industry.
Are these fears realistic?
These concerns are certainly realistic, as there are documented cases where employees have been retaliated against or where people don’t believe them when they come forward.
But the other thing that employees need to remember is that they do have rights and legal protections. Things like workplace retaliation are illegal, and all employees need to know exactly what steps to take if this happens to them.