Dear Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall

We are writing as survivors of workplace sexual harassment. We have lived the consequences of a system that does not protect workers, and we are asking you to change it.

Your own figures show that 9.8 million workers are sexually harassed at work every year. For too long, workers, mostly women, have been failed by a law that is not fit for purpose.

Almost 72% of the UK population has experienced sexual harassment at work in their lifetime, and the majority did not report it. Not because it wasn't serious, not because it didn't cause real harm and lasting distress, but because reporting still isn't safe.

Because the system protects employers, not workers. Because speaking up costs too much.

There is no meaningful enforcement, no preventative framework, and too little accountability. Almost 980,000 workers leave their jobs every year because they have been sexually harassed and there is nowhere to turn. They lose their income, their careers, and in many cases their health - not because they did anything wrong, but because the system left them with no other option.

Jo worked in the healthcare sector for five years. She excelled, earned two promotions, and was dedicated to a role she loved. Over the course of a year, she was repeatedly sexually harassed by a colleague and left to manage the consequences alone. She now lives with PTSD, depression, and chronic insomnia. She has lost her income, her health, and her career. Her perpetrator still works within the healthcare system.

Jo's story is not an isolated case. It is repeated every day across workplaces in Britain.

The Worker Protection Act 2023 introduced a duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. We welcomed that. It does not go nearly far enough.

The Health and Safety Executive already defines workplace violence as including abuse, threats, and assault arising from work. Sexual harassment clearly falls within that definition. We are not asking for new rules. We are asking for existing ones to be applied consistently.

At present, we are expected to carry the burden alone, navigating complex tribunal processes and funding legal support many of us cannot afford. As Jo put it: justice should not come with a price tag.

We are calling on you to bring workplace sexual harassment fully within the scope of health and safety regulation, with the HSE empowered to investigate, enforce, and hold employers to account before harm occurs, not after workers' lives have already been damaged. No worker should have to suffer trauma before an employer is forced to act.

The law is not fit for purpose. Workers are being failed. We have waited long enough. We urge you to act.

Signed by survivors of sexual harassment at work.