The survey will be the first stop in its research project, which will also examine how companies handle the issue and list the best practices.

It will also spell out the avenues through which victims can seek legal recourse, in the absence of specific laws on the issue here.

Ms Leigh Pasqual, who chairs Aware's sub-committee on the subject, called the survey a 'fact-finding mission' to uncover the attitudes towards and level of awareness of sexual harassment at the workplace.

The study will be an update of Aware's last such survey in 1993, when half the 389 respondents reported having experienced verbal, visual or physical harassment in the office, she said. Of these respondents, about half said the perpetrators were their superiors.

The new survey aims to find out, among other things, what a person would consider as harassment, who the perpetrator is and whether the harassment involved suggestive remarks or being forcibly hugged or sexually assaulted. Men, who also can be victims, will also be polled.

The move comes less than two months after a United Nations committee on women's rights questioned Singapore's lack of specific laws targeting sexual harassment.

Singapore has replied that, while sexual harassment was not an offence here, victims can file reports with the Ministry of Manpower and the police; the more extreme forms of harassment such as the use of criminal force to outrage a victim's modesty, are still punishable under the Penal Code.

Labour MP Halimah Yacob said the survey would be 'useful', given that so little local data on the issue is available.

She expressed hope, however, that the data would be mined carefully in the absence of a clear definition of harassment.

'Some women may be tolerant of dirty jokes, so would that constitute harassment?' she asked.

Aware president Constance Singam said the survey would recognise and address such potential difficulties.

An IT professional of an American multinational, who was sexually harassed two years ago, said she hoped the survey would show the extent of the problem and make companies aware that this could be a 'hidden scourge'.

When a colleague kept sending her lewd SMS messages, the 34-year-old complained to her boss who, in turn, took the matter to the human resources division.

HR warned the co-worker and transferred him to another department. He quit shortly afterward.

'I am not sure whether all companies here have such swift mechanisms for their complaints to be addressed,' said the victim, who declined to be named.

The experience has left her wary. She now rarely goes out for meals with male colleagues, even in a group.

To take part in the survey, log on to www.aware.org.sg