RIYADH, 20 November 2007 — Abeer, who refused to give her last name, recounts a job interview she went on at a medical clinic in the capital. The interview began properly, with the manager quizzing Abeer on her knowledge of medical terms. But then things got weirdly personal.

The manager, she said, began talking about how romantic he was and describing his ideal woman. Abeer said he started making sexually provocative comments and tried to grope her.

Abeer said she cut her interview short and stormed out of the office. “Until when will we women be victims of these sick people?” Abeer told the Arabic newspaper Al-Riyadh recently. “We don’t live in a jungle where the strong eat the weak.”

Indeed, as more and more Saudi women enter the national workforce, some problems have arisen with professional relations between women employees and their male bosses.

According to the report, incidence of women being subjected to sexual harassment during their job searches is increasing. These improper advances have included male supervisors making sexist comments directed at women employees or job applicants, harassing by phone, or demanding that the women go with them on dates — or worse.

“Many women applicants face harassment at the hands of men in the private sector because the men still look at women as followers and not partners,” said Saqr bin Muhammad, the head of the International Cooperation Department at Naif University for Security Sciences. “Many men look at women as something to devour.”

Saudi women who set out in search of employment do so because they simply need the money, but they also have a desire to be treated as professional equals. Women interviewed by the newspaper called for fairness and an end to being treated as sex objects by their male supervisors and colleagues.

“We face harassment at most job interviews,” said a 23-year-old Saudi woman who did not want to be named. “They take advantage of our desperation for a job. They wink their eyes and make inappropriate advances. Some will demand a date in return for being hired. We simply cannot approve of such behavior because if we concede on these demands they will ask for more things later.”

The woman, who had graduated from a technical training program for computing and was looking for a job to help her sick mother, said she has faced an uphill battle with sexist employers and has yet to find a job. Women in more desperate situations, she said, might easily submit to the prurient demands of unethical bosses.

A woman in her early 20s from a low-income household, who also did not want to be named, said she started looking for work after her father became too ill to work. With only a high school diploma, the woman applied to work as a bank clerk.

“I knew the situation would be difficult for me,” she said. “But not like this. Every time a man would interview me it would go wrong. One guy asked for my home phone number. One guy offered to give me jewelry in exchange for being his mistress. Another asked me out on a date. A couple of them outright asked me to sleep with them for the job. It’s really disgraceful.”

Exacerbating the problem is a lack of law enforcement. The girls interviewed for the report all wondered to whom they could go to in the instance of sexual harassment.