WHAT HAPPENS IF IT IS FOUND AFTER INVESTIGATIONS THAT SOMEONE MADE A FALSE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIM ?.

Meddy and Saida have been 'secret lovers' for at least 8months. Saida got tired of playing hide and seek in the office and when Meddy refused to officiate their relationship, they broke up. Meddy was unhappy about this so he went to the Human Resources officer and reported that Saida (who is a manager) has been asking him for sex and a relationship and he fears that if he refuses, he will be risking his job at the organisation. As proof he brought screenshots of his text conversations with Saida showing that she was saying that he would regret refusing to be in a relationship with her. Saida claims that she is in no way harassing him and they were in a consensual relationship however it ended. These claims that Meddy is making have already started having a negative effect on her as it has affected the way her coworkers look at her. Saida wants to know what she can do.

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY? 

A claim of sexual harassment is a very serious thing because it can have implications on the career of an individual who is involved whether as the complainant or the accused person. If a person makes a claim which is false or baseless against another person and it is found after the investigations that this claim was false, the law allows an employer to take disciplinary action against that person. This can even result in the loss of the job by the person who falsely made the claim.  

Other than this, the law allows the person who was falsely accused and suffered damage against their reputation to take other legal actions against such a person by suing the person for defamation (which means saying false things against another person which damage his/her reputation in society).  

This means that Saida can sue Meddy  in court for what he did to her reputation and the company they work for  can punish him for what he did depending on the punishments that they have internally as a company.

📷:Unsplash

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