The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said on Thursday that the number of sexual harassment complaints workers filed with the agency over the past year rose for the first time in nearly a decade, attributing the increase to the #MeToo movement.
The commission said the number of complaints, known as charges, filed in the fiscal year that ended September 30 rose more than 12 percent over the previous year, when it received about 6,700. It said the numbers were preliminary, as the agency typically publishes comprehensive data from its fiscal year by the following February.
EEOC Acting Chair Victoria Lipnic said in a statement that the numbers reflected “the heightened demand of the #MeToo movement.”
The #MeToo movement emerged in response to accusations of sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men in the entertainment industry starting last October. Many lawyers and other experts had predicted that the movement would spur an…