(LEGAFI) -- An Italian restaurant chain in Tennessee has been ordered to pay $25,000 to several female employees to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

According to the sexual harassment lawsuit, Rafael’s Italian Restaurant violated federal law by subjecting female employees, including some teenagers, to sexual harassment. The lawsuit alleges that as far back as 2005, male kitchen workers at a Tullahoma, Tennessee, Rafael’s restaurant repeatedly subjected female employees to egregious acts of sexual harassment, including crude comments, requests for sex and physical touching – which included using vegetables to simulate sodomy and to hit the victims between their legs.

The female employees allege in the sexual harassment lawsuit that despite repeated complaints from several of the women, management ignored the problem.

Failure to correct known sexual harassment, whether by a co-worker or customer, violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC filed the sexual harassment lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Easter District of Tennessee.

In addition to providing the women monetary relief, the settlement requires Rafael’s Italian Restaurant to sign a two-year consent decree banning the restaurant chain from further discrimination against female employees. Rafael’s Italian Restaurant will provide annual training on employee rights under Title VII and must maintain records of sexual harassment complaints and provide annual reports to the EEOC. The decree also requires Rafael’s Italian Restaurant to establish and enforce a written policy that will protect employees from discrimination in the workplace and post a notice to all employees about the lawsuit that provides the EEOC’s contact information.

“Allowing serial harassers to victimize female employees without facing consequences is a clear violation of federal law,” said Faye A. Williams, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Memphis District Office, which has jurisdiction over Arkansas, Tennessee and portions of Mississippi. “Managers must take swift action to stop this sort of abuse when they receive complaints of sexual harassment from their employees, especially when the complaints involve teenage employees who are in the work force for the first time.”