University teacher and Turku city councilor Saara Ilvessalo said last year that an employee of Åbo Akademi had sexually harassed her. Now the university apologizes to Ilvessalo that the university’s procedure in the case has caused suffering.
Åbo Akademi the university teacher and Turku city councilor apologize Saara from Ilvessalo (green).
Ilvessalo, who works at Åbo Akademi, has accused a university employee of sexual harassment. Ilvessalo himself told the matter publicly last year.
Ilvessalo has said that the harassment took place last spring during the continuation of the meeting and the informal parties connected to work. According to Ilvessalo, the man groped and made sexual suggestions, and did not stop even though Ilvessalo moved further away and directly said “no”.
Last summer, Ilvessalo said in his Facebook update that the “claw” was in a position of power over him in many ways. He mentioned age and academic status as examples.
Ilvessalo said in his update at the time that the university finally decided not to do anything about the matter, because “the possible incident did not happen during working hours or at the workplace”. Ilvessalo said that he was completely done with the process, angry, disappointed and sad.
Read more: Greens city councilor, researcher Saara Ilvessalo accuses Åbo Akademi employee of sexual harassment
Today Åbo Akademin published on Wednesday in the bulletin it is noted that the university has held discussions with the parties to the case during the fall. The principal is the signatory of the release Mikael Lindfelt and Director of University Services Heidi Backman.
“In addition to this, we have developed our processes and trained our staff to handle discrimination, harassment and bullying better,” the release states.
The university is said to disassociate itself from all kinds of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment.
“Despite this, not everything always goes right. In the autumn discussions, it has become clear that the process in the case in question has not worked in accordance with our aspirations and values, instead the attention in the process has been mainly focused on statutory aspects. We would like to apologize to Saara Ilvessalo that our procedure has caused her suffering. We have not been receptive and empathetic enough in his treatment,” the release says.
Åbo Akademi’s press release only talks about the “handling of the notification of harassment”. The announcement does not highlight what the harassment report was about in more detail.
Ilvessalo has commented on the apology on social media.
“An apology for the poor handling of sexual harassment and the lack of understanding is a relief. It’s one of the few things I’ve asked for in almost a year,” Ilvessalo writes.
He states that if the apology had come last spring or summer, everyone would have been spared a lot of trouble and suffering.
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