Hong Kong's Priorities on Workplace Harassment
Answerable to the passed time.
When Glass Towers Have No Foundations
Hong Kong has no comprehensive law against workplace harassment. None. In 2026. In a city that calls itself a global financial centre.
There are pieces. The Sex Discrimination Ordinance covers sexual harassment. The Disability Discrimination Ordinance and Race Discrimination Ordinance cover their specific domains. But workplace harassment itself — the daily grinding down of human dignity through bullying, through psychological abuse, through the systematic destruction of a person's sense of worth — remains unaddressed.
The Equal Opportunities Commission asked for change in 2016. Asked again in 2019. Published a consultation paper. Held forums. Gathered submissions. The government listened. The government nodded. The government did nothing.
Ten years now. The issue sits in what officials call active consideration. As if consideration were a thing that moved.
What Harassment Actually Looks Like
It is not merely hurt feelings. It is not office politics. It is the supervisor who screams at subordinates until they shake. The colleague who spreads rumours designed to destroy reputations. The manager who assigns impossible tasks then punishes inevitable failure. The systematic isolation until a worker feels invisible. The constant belittling until they believe themselves worthless.
This happens every day. In offices. In shops. In restaurants and hotels. In hospitals. In schools.
When it happens — when someone's mental health crumbles under sustained abuse — the law offers them almost nothing. They can resign and claim constructive dismissal. The bar is high. The employer has lawyers. The employee has trauma and perhaps some saved text messages.
They can try civil action. The burden of proof sits heavy on shoulders already bent. The costs are prohibitive. The timeline is years. Justice delayed until it means nothing.
Most do what most do. Endure it. Suffer it. Let it eat away.
Everyone Else Has Already Left the Station
The United Kingdom has the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. It covers all harassment. Australia has extensive anti-bullying provisions. Singapore amended workplace safety laws to include psychological harm. These are not radical jurisdictions. They are capitalist economies that value business. They recognised a basic truth: allowing systematic abuse in workplaces is bad for everyone.
Hong Kong watches with interest. With active consideration. But does not act.
The Reasonable Excuses
Why? The reasons are always measured. Balance competing interests. Don't burden businesses with excessive regulation. Ensure any law is clear and workable. Study international experiences. Consult stakeholders. Be careful not to open floodgates of litigation.
Strip away the bureaucratic polish. What remains is simple. The interests of employers outweigh the interests of employees. The comfort of the powerful matters more than the suffering of the vulnerable.
It Is About Power
The real issue is power. Workplace harassment is fundamentally about the abuse of power. The solution to abuse of power is accountability. Legal accountability. Not suggestions. Not guidelines. Not active consideration. Law.
Law creates consequences. Law shifts calculations. Law makes clear that certain behaviours are unacceptable not because they are impolite but because they are wrong.
Hong Kong understands this. It applies it elsewhere. There are laws against fraud because internal company policies are insufficient. There are laws against assault because social norms alone do not prevent violence.
Why, then, not laws against workplace harassment? Why leave this particular abuse of power to voluntary mechanisms that have demonstrably failed?
The Annual Ritual of Doing Nothing
Each year the EOC includes workplace harassment in its priorities. Each year the government acknowledges the issue. Each year passes and nothing changes.
This is institutional failure dressed up as careful process. People endure what they should not have to endure. They suffer what they should not have to suffer. They accept as normal what should be intolerable.
The law moves slowly. It always has. But when it moves this slowly, when it takes decades to address what everyone already knows is wrong, something deeper is broken.