Women's groups are seeking to make sexual harassment illegal, according to Zaitun Kasim, spokesperson for the Women's Candidacy Initiative (WCI).

She said that the current code against sexual harassment in the workplace, which is voluntary, should be backed up with legislation making the act punishable by law.

"The current code of practice against sexual harassment is a good thing, but if you look at its implementation, the optional code has no teeth and awareness is lacking among employees."

The "Code of Practice on the Prevention and Eradication of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace" was introduced back in August last year by the Human Resources Ministry, but a count in March this year indicated that only 50 companies have adopted it.

Zaitun argued for greater legislative power against sexual harassment, as employees are entitled to legal protection and not just a code that isn't compulsory for companies and isn't sufficiently adopted within the workplace.

This Friday, the Joint Action Group Against Violence Against Women (JAG), will be presenting a memorandum calling for the creation of a much needed sexual harassment legislation to Human Resources Minister Dr Fong Chan Onn.

JAG is a coalition of women's groups across West Malaysia, including the Women's Crisis Centre, the All Women's Action Committee of Malaysia (Awam), the WCI and Sisters in Islam.

The memorandum is the result of a six-week signature campaign in an attempt to advance the existing code.

With the memorandum, JAG begins by calling for more effective laws to address human rights violations at the workplace, particularly against women employees.

Zaitun rejected the excuse that a legislation on sexual harassment will be too difficult to implement.

"There are mixed messages from the government regarding the proposal to sexual harassment legislation, among them that it is 'too difficult to ascertain'. If it is difficult, then so be it, we will just have to muddle through," she said, emphasising the necessity of legal recourse to protect against human rights violations.

She also adds that "it is insufficient for the government to talk to women's groups alone; rather, they need to speak to those on the ground, namely the women employees themselves.

"Furthermore, it is only right if the government informs every woman in this country of her right to be protected from sexual harassment."

According to Sangeetha Chandra-Sekaran, research coordinator for the Sexual Harassment Research Project at Awam, the missing role of company management on questions regarding sexual harassment results in employees not being properly educated on this issue.

"People are willing to have a code to address harassment problems as they arise, but company management themselves are not keen to educate their employees because they are worried that this will open up the floodgates of harassment complaints.

"Right now, employees may not even know what sexual harassment means. Even if they are aware of the existence of a code of practice, they may not know the details of the policy," she said.

"With the memorandum, JAG is pushing for legislation, starting at the workplace."