Harassment vs Victimisation: Difference and Comparison

There are several ways in which people suffer for their good or bad deeds. When someone does something bad, then they are treated under government orders for punishment.

However, some people misbehave and make other good people suffer just because of their good deeds and suffer victimization and harassment.

Key Takeaways

1. Harassment involves unwanted, offensive behavior directed at an individual, while victimization refers to being targeted and harmed by someone else’s actions.
2. Harassment can be verbal, physical, or psychological, while victimization encompasses a broader range of experiences, including crime, abuse, and discrimination.
3. Both harassment and victimization can significantly negatively affect the targeted individual’s mental and emotional well-being.

Harassment vs Victimisation

Harassment is any unwanted behavior, physical or verbal that makes a person feel uncomfortable, humiliated or abused. Victimisation is the act of treating a person badly or unfairly, because they have made a complaint about harassment, discrimination or any other protected activity.

Harassment is the act of bullying and treating someone badly. It involves threats, teasing, fear or phobia of something, bullying attacks, criminal violence, or failed attempt at a lynching.

It is done to make someone realize that they are physically weak or to arouse a fear of something in them.

Victimisation is the act of harassing someone through attempts of threatening, teasing, fear, bullies, violence, or even very less deserving treatment to someone because they raised their voice and turned against deadly offenses like harassment.

Victimisation is a result of someone’s courage to disagree with bullying, violence, or discrimination.

Comparison Table

Parameters of Comparison	Harassment	Victimisation
Definition	Harassment is the way of treating someone badly through threats, violence, attacks, etc.	Victimisation is the way of harassing and treating someone badly because they have turned against such acts.
Purpose	There can be any purpose or no purpose behind harassing someone.	Victimisation has a central purpose in someone’s against behavior for harassment and discrimination.
Victims	The victims of harassment are not strong-hearted and may get a lot impacted.	All those who suffer victimisation are strong-hearted as they have their hands against bullies.
Impact	The impact of harassment is less than it is often.	Victimisation has a strong impact as it is a kind of repetitive act.
Stages	Harassment is the first stage to mentally or physically torture someone.	Victimisation is the last stage of harassing someone unless it becomes repetitive.

What is Harassment?

Harassment is the act of behaving rudely or hurting someone in either a physical or a mental way.

The ways of harassing someone include threats, torture, hurting, fear, discrimination, bullying, teasing, or making them feel left out. All these acts come under a single word that we call harassment.

Harassment can start from a basic single level to make someone feel left out or perform cyberbullying and can go to peak stages where the victim is badly suppressed under the trauma of harassment through physical attacks, violence, abuse, hatred, discrimination, and many more ways.

Harassment has turned out to be deadly and suicidal too. This is because the trauma level of the brain of the victim is passed out of a certain limit that may cause them to commit suicide just to get rid of harassment.

The other big cause of harassment is death, or simply murder just because the victim cannot handle the hurt that the scoffer puts on.

Moreover, harassment is a punishable offense and has its own set of rules and protocols as mentioned in the law bodies. The offense of harassment is non-bailable and can lead to solitary confinement in several cases too.

What is Victimisation?

Victimisation is a more cruel act that can even lead to loss of faith in humanity and law bodies. Victimisation is also an intentional act of harassing someone through any means but more cruelly because the victim has turned against harassment once in the near past and courageously condemned it.

Victimisation is done by scuffers to take over the courage that the victim has shown and it happens more badly than just harassing someone.

Besides just cruelty shown in harassment, victimisation also has repetitive central actions many times to make the victim realize that they have done something serious to inform the local police or tried a way to stop harassment allegedly.

Victimisation has way more impacts than just harassment. It is also life-taking and suicidal as it breaks the trust of the victim in local police or their saviors.

Victimisation is also a punishable offense as all the acts of harassment come under criminal activities.

Victimisation is also crueler because it includes certain more factors like financial loss, robbery, serious thefts, etc to torture somebody.

Victimisation is also a non-bailable offense and also can lead to solitary confinement or capital punishment in several cases.

Main Differences Between Harassment and Victimisation

1. Harassment has solitary confinement as an punishment. On the other hand, victimisation has both solitary confinement and the death penalty.
2. Harassment includes mental or physical torture. On the other hand, victimisation also includes financial loss, robberies, heavy thefts, etc.
3. Harassment is occurring in workplaces, offices, and even houses. On the other hand, victimisation is done in private places with more cruelty.
4. Harassment is an unexpected act because it is the first step towards a crime. On the other hand, victimisation is an expected intentional act somebody can think of after getting harassed once.
5. Harassment is not serious. On the other hand, victimisation has a very serious background.

References

1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1057567716639093
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2011.637247

Last Updated : 19 July, 2023