Labour Laws: Protection from Sexual Harassment

Brief Description

With regard to harmonisation of Gender Equality Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina (GEL BiH), especially the parts related to the area of labour and employment, the Labour Laws of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srspka (RS), were adopted in 2016 and additionally amended in 2018.  these new laws for the first time treat gender based sexual harassment, violence and mobbing and determine the legal protection for such cases. With regard to sexual harrasment and gender based violence, it is determined that the employee has the right to seek protection from the employer and in case the employer does not satisfy such request, the employee can file a lawsuit to the relevant court. In that case, the burden of proof lies with the employer who has to prove that there was no discrimination. Therefore, the victim of discrimination does not have to prove the existence of discrimination in court proceedings but only state the facts, submits documents to convice the court that discrimination exists, while the burden of proof that there was no discrimination lies on the employer. In practice, women are often victims of mobbing but a very low number of mobbing cases end up in courts due to women's fear that they would lose their jobs.