Ley Karin — Chile's National Law Against Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment

Ley Karin (Law No. 21.643) took effect on 1 August 2024, amending Chile's Labour Code and Administrative Statute to define and sanction workplace harassment, sexual harassment and third-party violence. Every employer, public or private, must maintain a written prevention protocol and internal complaints channel; a single incident is now enough to constitute harassment, and Chile's Labour Directorate (Direccion del Trabajo, DT) can investigate directly and apply protective measures such as paid leave, physical separation or remote work while a case is resolved. The law is named after Karin Salgado, a health worker who died by suicide in 2019 after workplace harassment, and follows Chile's 2023 ratification of ILO Convention 190.
In its first eleven months (August 2024-June 2025), Chile's social-security regulator SUSESO recorded 44,212 total complaints, 66.4% filed by women and 90% of sexual-harassment complaints specifically filed by women. Protective measures were applied in the large majority of cases: early psychological care in 71%, physical separation in 43%. The Labour Directorate carried out over 2,100 workplace inspections in the law's first year, issuing nearly 1,000 fines for protocol non-compliance.
Independent reporting has been more cautious about outcomes. By its two-year mark, only 16.6% of the roughly 68,000 cumulative complaints were confirmed as actual Ley Karin violations, 87.8% of completed investigations exceeded the 30-business-day legal limit (averaging around 103 days), and the Labour Directorate's own minister described the agency as 'saturated'. Investigative outlet CIPER Chile summarised public-sector implementation as showing 'visible progress, limited effectiveness'.

Read the full analysis: https://www.ciperchile.cl/2025/12/25/ley-karin-avances-visibles-eficacia-limitada-en-el-estado/