L’Oreal Paris and Tel Aviv Launch Local Campaign for Stopping Sexual Harassment
It is a first in Israel that a campaign for dealing with sexual harassment is being launched by a local authority in the public sphere.
The Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, the Tel Aviv Sexual Assault Crisis Center, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel and L’Oreal Paris have joined forces to provide greater security to those who face sexual harassment, both men and women.
They are doing so by encouraging bystanders to intervene.
The campaign
The purpose of the campaign is to call on men and women to intervene when they see sexual harassment happening in the public and put a stop to it.
The joint campaign talks about five simple tools that can be used for doing so and an interactive lesson can help in teaching about them.
These tools involve being empathetic towards the victim, calling on another person in the area to assist, documenting the circumstances, speaking to the harasser directly and coming up with an indirect way of distracting them.
The Stand Up program
A global program by the name of Stand Up has been launched by L’Oreal Paris and this campaign is part of it.
This particular program states that bystanders possess the power of assisting in situations where they realize that someone is getting harassed.
The chief executive of the L’Oreal Israel Group, Elie Sagiv, said that since the L’Oreal Group was established more than a hundred years ago, it has been working on social causes focused on the advancement of women.
The CEO said that L’Oreal Paris is dedicated to preventing sexual harassment in public as part of its brand’s values.
This is what the Stand Up program is meant to do and they have already introduced it in more than 50 countries around the world.
Israel’s role
The top executive said that they had joined hands with the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel for implementing the program in the country.
He further said that Israel had become one of the leading countries where the program has been implemented and in terms of the number of people who have received training.
He asserted that they want the training of the Stand Up program to be accessible widely and appreciated with cooperation of the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa for this purpose.
He said that this would help the L’Oreal Group in promoting its social goals in the country. Mayor of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Ron Huldai, also talked about the campaign.
He said that sexual harassment is unacceptable and they should do everything possible to eliminate it. He added that their goal was to not reduce it, but to wipe it out altogether.
The campaign is scheduled to begin this week before Friday, as that will mark the day celebrated for eliminating violence against women internationally.
Some of the top influencers were also recruited for creating awareness about the campaign with the help of platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.
The municipality will also ensure that all municipal employees receive the training as well.
