Third-party sexual harassment against women workers in spaces of weakened employer control: towards an enhanced due diligence standard

Abstract

This paper examines a dimension of Spanish labour law that remains insufficiently developed: sexual harassment suffered by women workers when the perpetrator is not formally part of the undertaking, but acts instead as a client, service user, patient, resident, supplier, relative or visitor. Drawing on a doctrinal analysis of the applicable Spanish and international framework, a specialised literature review, a sectoral and corporate comparative review (hospitality, long-term care, contact centres and IBEX 35 companies), the article argues that employer compliance cannot be reduced to the mere formal existence of an internal protocol. The findings show that legally sufficient prevention also requires attention to those settings in which work is performed under fragmented, indirect or functionally weakened employer control, and that even in corporate environments with sophisticated governance there remains an uneven legal recognition of third-party sexual harassment. On that basis, the paper proposes the analytical category of “spaces of weakened employer control” and argues that, in such settings, the employer’s duty to protect women workers must be reconstructed as an obligation of enhanced due diligence, articulated around risk identification, preventive adaptation, immediate response and measurable follow-up.