Indecent proposal

The year of 1995 was a dark year for Ms W. She graduated from college and worked as an assistant teacher at a university in Beijing. One day she had a meeting with her supervisor, a professor in his 50s, in his office. At first, they sat face to face; then he asked her to sit by his side - and put his hand on her leg. She was so focused on their discussion she paid no attention to his advances. Then, as she got up to leave, the professor suddenly hugged her from behind and touched her breasts with both hands. Feeling shocked and insulted, she broke free but the professor caught her and patted her hip. She was too scared to cry for help and ran away in anger.

"I felt terribly sick and violated for a long time after," she tearfully told counselors. "I thought I'd done something wrong. I wondered if I should tell someone about it. I didn't know how to protect myself. I only wanted to escape."

From March 2007 to December 2008, researchers at the Maple Women's Psychological Counseling Center, Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences and Zhongshan University jointly conducted a survey on sexual harassment in the workplace. They interviewed 1,501 people, 61 percent of them women, in Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou. Nearly 83 percent of respondents had been sexually harassed over the previous three years.