For millions of teenagers in the American workplace, being sexually harassed is not an uncommon occurrence in their daily work environment. Unfortunately, adolescents in the workplace become particularly vulnerable to acts of harassment because they lack awareness of their rights as employees and do not have sufficient work experience or maturity to deal with situations that arise in the work environment. These teens are usually part-time workers, overlooked for training, view their supervisors as having the most authority over their work, and are more likely to be unaware of harassment policies than other workers within the workforce. Despite all these factors, more and more organizations in industries such as retail (e.g. Kmart), entertainment (e.g. movie theaters) and food services (e.g. McDonalds), to be specific, have targeted adolescents as key source of work. By doing so, these organizations have exposed themselves to the responsibility of protecting the young people they employ and must take even greater measures to prevent these teenagers from being subjected to a hostile work environment. Where these organizations fail to protect the young people they employ, the federal (and state) government, through the passage of labor laws and through the administration of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), attempts to ensure that teenagers are fairly educated and represented if such a hostile work environment occurs. It is through EEOC enforcement that the government has recognized the need to protect teens from workplace harassment and has more recently been active in taking action against organizations that fail to do so. Despite these efforts, a growing number of...... middle of paper ......and successfully demonstrate workplace harassment. Larger increases in punitive and compensatory damages are becoming increasingly common as awards by juries in cases involving teenage workers. Despite these legal protections, there is still more to be done to ensure that working teenagers are protected in the workplace from harassment. Employers need to recognize their neglect of adolescents within the workforce to become more aware of the hostile work environments they may be creating or promoting for the adolescents they employ. With the EEOC establishing initiatives to educate these adolescents about their rights as employees and providing assistance to employers through the creation of specific guidelines for the prevention of harassment, it is likely that in the future the workplace for teenagers it will change for the better..