SYDNEY, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- About 65 percent of Australian airline cabin crew have experienced sexual harassment, and one in five have experienced it up to ten times, according to a report released on Monday by the Transport Workers Union (TWU).
Incidents include serious sexual assault, workers being pinned down and assaulted, passengers exposing themselves to crew, workers being touched inappropriately, highly sexualised comments and degrading comments targeted to crew because of their sexual orientation.
Results revealed that incidents have occurred on all major airlines, and many of the reports involved pilots, and other senior staff.
Due to concerns about making the situation worse, only 31 percent of those who experienced sexual harassment reported it, and those that did said they mostly felt unsatisfied with how their complaint was handled.
"These results are sad and shocking," TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said.
"They show that airlines are not taking the problem seriously and are not supporting workers when they are faced with what are daily assaults on them."
The TWU now plans on working with willingly respondents to the survey, in order to devise solutions for the problem.
"We have had a lot of positive feedback from those we have contacted who took part in the survey," Kaine said.
"Many people want to see this issue exposed and dealt with -- it is not good enough for airlines to say they have policies in place to deal with sexual harassment."
