Starbucks does not have the corner on sexually harassing teens.

As an ex high school teacher and harassment prevention trainer, I dealt regularly with this issue. High school girls were propositioned, groped and required to date or perform a sexual act to get a job or a raise. Teenage sexual victimization is a quiet crime. As a career and technical educator, one of my responsibilities was to teach sexual harassment prevention to my junior and senior students. After the presentation, students would congregate and share their “war” stories in the lunchroom, quad, or bathrooms.

How did I know this? Staff members would mention it to me and some of those girls would stop by to talk to me. Brave students would stop me in the quad or stop by my classroom after school. These students were reluctant to admit it happened to them, so the talk would usually be about a “friend” or relative that was involved in a sexual harassment situation. It was evident that most of these “friends” thought they had to go along with it, they caused it to happen, or they did not want to get anyone in trouble. None of them wanted to admit it happened to them… it only happened to their “unnamed” friends.

• A female student was asked whether she had a boyfriend, whether they had sex and what kind of sex she liked during an interview. She got up and left.
• A 17-year-old student talked about a male interviewer telling her she could have the job if she went on a date with him. She told him no and did not get the job.
• A 15 year old told me that she knew of “someone” that had to give a boss oral sex to get a raise. She would not reveal her “friend’s” name.
• After she graduated, one of my most successful female students told me that she went on an interview where the owner of the company got out of his chair, walked behind her, and started to touch her breasts. She just sat there.

Unfortunately, this unacceptable behavior continues.

Why does this behavior occur?

• Few students are willing to report it.
• Sex is a commodity on-campus and therefore seen as one off-campus.
• Sexual harassment is commonplace on a high school campus, thereby making it acceptable behavior off campus.
• Sexual harassment prevention is not commonly taught in school.
• Business owners are not required to train their employees in sexual harassment prevention in most states.

What can be done to address this problem?

• Sexual harassment on and off campus should be address at every high school.
• Sexual harassment prevention training should be offered in the freshman year.
• All businesses should train their employees.

Teenagers are the unspoken victims of sexual harassment. They are easily exploited by authority figures and most likely to say nothing. It is through education that schools can curb the sexual victimization of teenagers.

Rhonda Goetz is a sexual harassment prevention trainer and owner of Chrome Zebra, Inc. a sexual harassment prevention elearning company.