At a glance
- As we reported last year in our udpate dated 4 October, a new law was introduced in Brazil in September 2022 (Employ + Women) that has introduced significant new rules to protect women from violence and sexual harassment in the workplace.
- As of 21 March 2023, these rules are now mandatory for all companies with a CIPA (internal occupational health and accident prevention committee).
All relevant companies must adopt the following measures:
- Include conduct rules preventing sexual harassment and other forms of violence in the company's internal rules, with wide dissemination of the rules to all employees;
- Adopt procedures for receiving complaints / anonymous tip offs (hotlines), and, where applicable, for applying administrative sanctions to those directly or indirectly responsible for acts of sexual harassment and violence, guaranteeing the anonymity of the complainant;
- Include topics related to the prevention and fight against sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women in CIPA's activities and practices;
- Carry out, at least every 12 months, training, guidance and awareness activities for all employees at all hierarchical levels of the company on topics related to violence against women, sexual harassment, equality and diversity within the workplace. This should be in accessible, appropriate formats to maximise the effectiveness of such activities;
- In addition, Ordinance MTP 4219 issued by the Ministry of Labour also came into force this month introducing changes to Regulatory Norm n. 5 created by the Ministry of Labour to regulate CIPAs activities. This requires that training that is to be implemented by the companies must include, at least, the following matters: "preventing and combating sexual harassment and other forms of violence at work".
In the event of non-compliance, companies could be liable to administrative fines and have to attend discussions with union representatives and / or Public Prosecutor Officers.
