Placido Domingo was accused of harassment. And Emma Watson figured out how to deal with it

There is a new high-profile sex scandal in the world: 9 women - eight singers and one dancer - accused Spanish opera singer and director of the Los Angeles Opera Placido Domingo of harassment. Two of them admitted that they succumbed to the harassment, deciding not to risk their careers. Seven say they fought back and professionally it hurt them. Domingo himself denies all accusations, the earliest of which date back to the 80s, but admits that the rules and standards of behavior adopted now are different from those that were before.

Idea. After all the scandals that happened and the #MeToo flash mob that swept the whole world, start-ups began to appear in different countries, the purpose of which is to prevent harassment or help victims cope with a difficult situation. One of the latest projects in the UK was launched by the star of the Harry Potter saga and well-known activist Emma Watson. She announced that she was launching a toll-free Me Too helpline to provide women with legal advice on the issue of sexual harassment at work.

How it works. Lawyers will explain what behavior can be regarded as sexual harassment, how to start legal proceedings in the event of a conflict situation, when it is worth signing a settlement agreement and refusing further disclosure of defamatory information, and when not. The project was announced after the UK Jurisprudence Regulator (SRA) noticed a disturbing trend: due to the influx of cases related to harassment, lawyers began to en masse try to quickly close such cases and force clients to sign dubious non-disclosure agreements. Watson believes that the anonymous hotline should significantly improve the safety of jobs for women in the country.

What else. There are many other ideas that lie in the same plane.

• Australian VR program Equal Reality confronts a person with sexual harassment and bullying in virtual reality. Various situations played out by real actors help you learn how to react correctly and not get lost.
• In the US, there is an online platform tEQuitable, through which an employee can complain in writing about harassment or discrimination in the workplace. The system not only responds to complaints and suggests how to behave (basically, the situations for employees are very standard), but also collects data in order to identify the most common cases of harassment from real practice and suggest methods to deal with them.

Like we have. An anonymous support service would also be useful in Russia: recent studies (SuperJob and Levada surveys) indicate that only 5-10% of respondents experience harassment from colleagues - a suspiciously low level compared to other countries. Experts believe that such results are mainly due to the taboo of this topic in the country.