(UKPA) – 5 hours ago
Women’s equality at work is being threatened by displays of pornography and the use of lap-dancing clubs to entertain clients, a new report has warned.
The Fawcett Society said the sex industry had “infiltrated” the workplace after an “unprecedented” expansion over the past decade.
The campaign group said exposure of employees to pornography at work was “rife”, ranging from the display of pornography and a trend of entertaining clients and staff in lap-dancing clubs.
Research for the Fawcett Society found that 41% of UK lap-dancing clubs directly targeted employers through marketing on their websites.
Most lap-dancing clubs in London provided “discrete receipts” which enabled employees to claim back expenses from their employer, while lads’ mags were displayed for sale in more than 50,000 workplaces, said the report.
There were no independent, compulsory guidelines about the display and sale of pornography, and no major retailer had a policy of covering up lads’ mags or putting them on the top shelf, said the Fawcett Society.
A fifth of men admitted accessing pornography at work.
Kat Banyard, campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society, said: “Despite relative silence on the issue within employer circles, our research shows that the sex industry is a major threat to women’s equality at work.
“For too long, employers have engaged with the sex industry without due regard for the impact on female employees, and have failed to prevent the illicit use of the sex industry by employees in a work context. But this is an issue that employers cannot afford to ignore.”
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