Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual behaviour which could make a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated. It can be physical, verbal or written. As the number of women going to work rises they are increasingly at the risk of being subjected to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is not at all a new thing. More than 60% women face sexual harassment at some point in their working lives. The Supreme Court guidelines describe physical contacts or advances; demand or request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks and showing pornography as offensive conduct. Sexual harassment becomes even more serious when granting sexual favours become a term or condition for the individual's employment or it interferes with the individual's work performance.
For Indian women sexual harassment at workplace is nothing new, every day they come across stories, or I dare say witness stories of women (including themselves) being stalked, eye raped, or going through verbal and physical assault. Their biggest struggle is to maintain their sanctity -in their homes, on the road, in their educational institution, also at their workplace. Women aren't even spared in their dreams as their stalkers often find their way in their private space (their mind) due to the trauma of being harassed or assaulted. According to one of the surveys conducted by the popular cross-platform mobile calling and messaging app Nimbuzz, Indian women don't feel safe at their workplace with almost 47% of them registering concern and making sexual harassment a top issue in their workplace. Even men feel sexual harassment is one of the biggest problems for their female counterparts at their respective workplaces with almost 51% of men feeling that their female colleagues have faced sexual harassment one way or the other. From street vendors to police departments, to esteemed judges to hospitals, to regular offices to entrepreneurs– women’s dignity has been ripped apart blatantly and openly at workplaces despite the fact that India has the lowest ratio of working women in the world so much so that the number of sexual harassment complaints in workplace nearly doubled to 526 from 2013 to 2014. The top three industries which are unsafe for women are labourers, domestic help and small scale manufacturers. Although many cases of such discrimination go unnoticed a recent report by NDTV, the leading news agency, brought to light the harshness of the situation.
The severity of the problem heightens when you realize that there are some women who don't even realize that the behaviour they are experiencing at work constitutes some form of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment, as an issue, captured the collective consciousness of working women following the Shehnaz Mudbhaktal case. This gutsy woman worked as a hostess for Saudi Arabian airlines and her services with Saudi Arabian airlines were terminated because she refused to surrender to the sexual demands made by her superior. But still it took almost 16 years and finally in 2013 the Government of India brought the Prevention of Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (POSH) Act to reality.
The POSH Act 2013 defines sexual harassment at workplace and creates the much needed mechanism for redressal of complaints. The act necessitates an employer to form an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to entertain the complaints made by the aggrieved women and the names of the members of ICC are kept confidential to avoid unnecessary complications. The employer has to take the recommendations made by the ICC very seriously and implement the necessary action according to the severity of the complaints. Despite increased public awareness sexual harassment continues to plague workplaces. Women must shed their mentality of tolerance and they have to stop telling themselves that this kind of behaviour on the part of men is inevitable and unavoidable. If left unchecked, this could be devastating not only to the lives and careers of individual employees but also invariably weaken productivity and the morale of employees, according to the report.
Till the basic human dignity of women is not recognized and respected by men, no law will be effective. We cannot make work places safer for women by only implementing laws. Until and unless the mentality of males change we are stuck at a standstill. Harassment doesn't disappear on its own. In fact, it is likely to get worse if the problem is not addressed and thus it is absolutely essential that we set up training programmes and make it completely clear what is and isn't acceptable at the workplace. If we are going to talk the talk then we have got to walk the walk too by making our offices safer environments where women are given the opportunity to express themselves fully without any fear of harassment and when faced with adverse circumstances they should feel confident enough to approach the people in charge and register their complaints. It is important that constitutionally guaranteed principles of equality among men and women do not remain only empty words and should be upheld in practice.
(Safecity Blogger)