She moved from Mexico to Canberra for love, and married her partner not long after arriving. However her extensive experience and qualifications in human resources weren't enough to get her a job in the field, so after months of English classes and customer service training, she began work as a sales assistant at an ACT business.

Weeks into the new role, she quit.

Ms Montes De Oca alleges she became the one in three people who experience sexual harassment at work, after her boss allegedly came up behind her and slapped her bottom, while she was stacking shelves.

"Your mind changes in one second you think 'I'm not going to make a big deal because I want to keep this job'. The second after you think, 'no, it's my body why do they think they can slap me, they can touch me'," she told The Canberra Times.

"The second after [I said] 'I quit, I don't want to work here'. It's shocking."

Ms Montes De Oca claims the alleged perpetrator laughed it off, saying it was a joke and apologised - but she immediately left the scene and reported the allegations to police that afternoon.

It was a snap decision, made in the wake of a moment which Ms Montes De Oca thought could alter her working life for years to come.

"If I quit this job and say [why I quit] in another interview, is that going to be a reason they don't hire me?" she said.

An investigation began, but after weeks of receiving minor updates, Ms Montes De Oca got the call she had been dreading.

The alleged offender and witnesses denied her claims. The investigation would continue, police told her, but there was little more that could be done.

"I can't understand why we still need to fight. It should be common sense."

Stories like Janette's have spurred work by various government bodies to both prevent and respond to sexual harassment at work, some of which has been delayed by the pandemic.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins delivered the landmark Respect@Work report in March 2020, finding sexual harassment in Australian workplaces is "widespread and pervasive," with one in three people experiencing sexual harassment at work in the past five years.

Workers aged under 30 were most at risk or harassment, with women more likely to report being sexually harassed than men.

Making 55 recommendations, the report said employers should have a "positive duty" to protect employees from sexual harassment.

Speaking to The Canberra Times, Ms Jenkins said cases like the one alleged by Ms Montes De Oca showed how sexual harassment was both a systemic and societal issue that needs to be addressed for workers in small businesses particularly to be safe.

"If we tolerate inappropriate behaviours in our community, then it happens in those small workplaces as well as large workplaces."

While the report made a number of recommendations for employers to implement, Ms Jenkins said it was vital for people in small businesses, where there was no human resources department, or where the boss was the perpetrator, to understand they had somewhere to go for help.

The survey found people had varying experiences when trying to report being sexually harassed, including often being told by police it wasn't something they dealt with, without being referred to the correct organisation.

A Workplace Sexual Harassment Council, funded by the government since the report was handed down, is designed to ensure people know their options.

"For an individual, it's hard to call anywhere, but to then have to call multiple places. If you don't have a law degree to try and figure out where you should go, the system isn't working very well."

While in some ways the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a drop in some forms of sexual harassment at work due to the prevalence of working from home, Ms Jenkins said the increase in casualisation, drop in available jobs and people feeling more precarious in their employment has had a negative impact.

"That without doubt has left individuals fearful to do anything that might put their employment at jeopardy."

While Ms Montes De Oca's ability to stay in Australia doesn't depend on her employment, Ms Jenkins said migrant women, especially those on working visas were "at the absolute extreme in terms of risk".

As well as language barriers and a low awareness around what was considered acceptable in Australia, there would sometimes be social and cultural expectations, where victims were discouraged against speaking up about someone more senior in their cultural group.

"As a cohort there were so many reasons that meant they were unable to speak up because it wasn't just risking losing your job, it was risking being deported out of the country," Ms Jenkins said.

The government and employer groups have made moves to implement recommendations from the Respect@Work report, but some elements of the response have been slowed down by the response to the pandemic.

"The system is letting them down at the moment, and that's why we need to change a lot of things so that isn't the experience.

Women's Legal Centre ACT employment and discrimination practice head Bethany Hender said many women might not recognise they were being sexually harassed.

She said complaints could be taken to either the police or the ACT Human Rights Commission, and the process didn't always require the highest level of evidence to move forward.

"[The Human Rights Commission] is really flexible in terms of the way in which they do accept complaints. It's not like a formal court application ... it is much more simple than that," she said.

Ms Hender said women could still come forward with a complaint without physical evidence.

"We often hear from women, 'I have been sexually harassed, but there's nothing I can do because I don't have any evidence'," she said.

"Their accounts of what occurred is evidence and in situations like sexual harassment at work, it's very unlikely that the sexual harasser chose to do it when there were other people around or where they were being women knew there was CCTV footage, so it's unlikely you've got that kind of objective evidence.

"It does come down to the credibility of the person who's been sexually harassed and the sexual harasser and that can be really draining for some people to have their credibility challenged and questioned.

"That's why it's so important for them to have support in going through that process, it can be quite re-traumatising."