Sexual Harassment

Criminal Defense Lawyers Specializing in Sexual Harassment Crimes

Recent Success Cases

Sexual Harassment

Result: Absolution

Court: Court of First Instance
Complainant: Private Prosecution
Accusation: Crime of sexual harassment

Table of Contents

The Crime of Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment Lawyers

Sexual harassment is a crime regulated by Article 184 of the Penal Code, and the protected legal assets are, firstly, the sexual freedom of the victim and, secondly, the individual freedom in the victim’s environment.

This crime is different from sexual abuse and punishes those who take advantage of an employment, teaching, or service provision relationship to ask for sexual favors from another person in the same environment, causing the victim an objective, humiliating, intimidating, and hostile situation.

For this crime to occur, there must be willful intent on the part of the accused; the person responsible must be aware of the uncomfortable situation causing the other person and act with willfulness in his or her conduct. There is no reckless sexual harassment.

Conduct Constituting the Crime of Harassment

Our Sexual Harassment Attorneys have extensive experience as specialists in this area.

The typical conduct of this crime occurs when the responsible party takes advantage of the labor, teaching, or service-rendering relationship with the other person to make requests, whether physical, verbal, or non-verbal, of a sexual nature.

The crime is consummated with this simple request since it is a crime of activity and not of result, so the victim does not accept these requests. The result of this conduct is an uncomfortable and aggressive situation for the victim, which, on many occasions, continues over time and conditions the victim to leave her workplace or change her environment.

Elements of the crime of Sexual Harassment

As Sexual Harassment Lawyers, we have a deep knowledge of the law.

For the consummation of the crime of sexual harassment, the following circumstances must be met:

  • When a person solicits or makes requests of a sexual nature to another within the work, teaching, or service provision environment. These requests may be physical, verbal, or non-verbal.
  • When, due to these sexual requests, the passive subject suffers an uncomfortable, humiliating, or hostile situation. In other words, the second condition for a sexual harassment crime to be committed is based on the repercussions of the actions carried out by the active subject.
  • The requests of a sexual nature must take place in a work, teaching, or service provision environment in which there is a relationship between the two parties.
  • Finally, a fundamental element of this crime is the malicious nature of the harasser, who acts with willfulness in his behavior and is aware of the humiliating situation that his actions are causing the victim. There is no reckless sexual harassment.

If these premises are met, we find ourselves before the basic type of crime of sexual harassment, whose penalty is three to five months of imprisonment or a fine of six to ten months.

Aggravated Types of Sexual Harassment

In addition to the typical conduct, we will comment on three main aggravated types: sexual harassment with prevalence, sexual harassment with express or tacit announcement of a wrong, and the aggravated subtype.

Sexual harassment with prevalence

Prevalent sexual harassment occurs when, in a work, teaching, or service provision environment, sexual favors are requested, taking advantage of a situation of employment, education, or hierarchical superiority on the part of the harasser over the victim, and causing an intimidating or hostile trouble for the victim.

The purpose of this conduct is that the victim accepts the requests due to the position of labor and functional or hierarchical superiority of the harasser.

The penalty for this type of conduct is imprisonment of five to seven months or a fine of ten to fourteen months.

Sexual harassment with the express or tacit announcement of an evil.

This aggravated type occurs when the harasser announces an evil, expressly or tacitly, against the victim’s legitimate expectations, with the objective that the victim accepts the sexual proposals.

The jurisprudence establishes that the announced evil must be credible, real, and directed directly against the passive subject and never against a third party.

As in the previous case, this aggravated conduct is punishable by five to seven months imprisonment or a fine of ten to fourteen months.

Aggravated Subtype of sexual harassment

The aggravated subtype is the most severe conduct of this crime. It occurs when the accused takes advantage of a circumstance of special vulnerability of the victim to carry out the sexual harassment. This exposure situation is determined by the victim’s age, circumstances, or illness.

The penalty for this aggravated subtype is five to seven months imprisonment or a fine of ten to fourteen months and six months to one-year imprisonment if any of the aggravated types we commented on above are fulfilled.

If you need a criminal lawyer in Barcelona who specializes in resolving any problem related to a Sexual Harassment Crime, don’t hesitate to contact us.