Workplace Harassment
- Ounissa MOHDEB, Juriste généraliste
- May 25
- 1 min read
Updated: May 28
Workplace harassment constitutes one of the main causes of employee suffering. It significantly undermines mental health, resulting in major consequences on both the personal and professional lives of individuals.
Moreover, although increasingly documented and more clearly identified, workplace harassment remains, to this day, frequently trivialized and insufficiently addressed within professional environments.
This offence is characterized by a series of repeated, hostile, and degrading acts or behaviors that undermine the dignity and the physical or mental integrity of the employee. These actions substantially deteriorate working conditions.
Such conduct may originate from a hierarchical superior, a colleague, or a group of individuals. It tends to persist over time and creates an intimidating, destabilizing, or even humiliating professional environment.
Under Algerian law, workplace harassment is a prohibited practice as outlined in Article 6.3 of Law No. 90-11 of 21 April 1990 relating to labor relations. This provision states:
“Within the framework of the employment relationship, workers also have the right to respect for their physical and moral integrity and for their dignity.”
Furthermore, in matters of sexual harassment, the Algerian Penal Code provides under Article 341 bis: “Any person who abuses the authority conferred upon them by their position or profession, by giving orders, making threats, imposing constraints or exerting pressure with the aim of obtaining sexual favors, shall be deemed to have committed the offence of sexual harassment and shall be punished with imprisonment of two (2) months to one (1) year and a fine ranging from fifty thousand (50,000) to one hundred thousand (100,000) Algerian Dinars.”
