High rate of sexual harassment in Norway's media industry: report

OSLO, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A recent research showed that 11 percent of young women in Norway's media industry claimed to had been victims of sexual harassment or abuse over the past six months, public broadcaster NRK reported Friday.

The big extent of sexual harassment in the media industry was shown in the first "metoo" research conducted together by several Norwegian media organizations.

This came after series of reports of sexual harassment in Norway as a follow-up of the "#MeToo" campaign in the United States. Several of the reported cases came from Norwegian media industry.

The research showed that 11 percent of women in the media industry between the ages of 18 and 30 claimed to had been victims of sexual harassment or abuse at work or by colleagues in other situations over the past six months.

"By mapping the extent of sexual harassment and sexual assault, we will also be able to put in place measures and make managers and employees better able to prevent and handle cases of sexual harassment in the media institutions," Norwegian Union of Journalists wrote about the target of the survey.

"178 people have reported that they have been sexually harassed only in the past six months. It is a very high figure," Hege Iren Frantzen, leader of Norwegian Union of Journalists, said at a press conference.

According to the the report, 83.71 percent of the 178 victims are women.

A total of 1,607 people, which is 28 percent of the 5,741 people who participated in the research, said they had been exposed to the unwanted behavior for a longer time ago than the last 6 months.

"The figures show that we must targetedly work against harassment. It is particularly important to lower the threshold to talk about it," said Thor Gjermund Eriksen, director-general of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We have now enough knowledge about the problems in our industry to know we need to do something about it," said Arne Jensen, head of the Association of Norwegian Editors.

Most sexual harassment was experienced by temporary workers as 7.5 percent of the temporary employees in media in Norway said they had been sexually harassed.

"It is a high figure for a vulnerable group," Frantzen was quoted as saying. Enditem