Dear Women friends,

My comrades in my journey, my pillars of strength, roots of power and my biggest critic. There is so much that you have done for me that I can not do much to give you back and make it up. Irrespective of the others who exist in this society, I am sure I would have been pretty lonely if I had not found a friend, sister, mother, companion, colleague, and a lover in you. 🙂

This writeup is not about us, but the world that we live in and the experiences we have with our community and other gender communities that are around us. As I have been and lived as a woman for three decades now, there are some experiences which I am sure are applicable in your life journey as well.

“An interview which you are sure you did not get because you shared your marriage plans.

A promotion you did not get because of your family planning.

A business deal not pushing through as you did not entertain the advances of the individual sitting on the other side of the table.

The glare and stares of individuals of a restaurant made you feel objectified and leered at.

Acquiring the services of a company and then being pursued by one of the providers (take reference from the cases surrounding Uber and Zomato).

And casual remarks with respect to life being easy for you as you are a woman!”

These are just some of the thousands of examples that I can share here and I am sure that not one single woman from the readership can say not experiencing them.

So what do we do when this happens? We go back home and share these with our friends and families. For the active social media people out there, we write about them in articles, tweets, or small Facebook posts.

In extreme situations, we decide to approach police (but this also just on phone). Is that all? Is there nothing else that can be done to structure a solution for this?

In December of 2013, Indian government enacted a law that prevents, prohibits and redresses sexual harassment of women at workplaces.

While many applauded this initiative, it faced rejections and critic from several segment of the society. Let me share some basic information about this law and its features:

What all places are meant to be made safe for you under this law?

1. Government bodies and Public sector organisations,
2. Private organizations,
3. Non-governmental organisations,
4. Organisations carrying out commercial, vocational, educational, entertainment, industrial, financial activities,
5. Hospitals and nursing homes,
6. Educational institutes,
7. Sports institutions and stadiums used for training individuals,
8. Dwelling place or a house where a domestic help works whether full time or part time

Are you covered under this law?

The Prevention of Sexual harassment at workplace act in India is not gender neutral yet. According to the law any ‘aggrieved woman’ can file a complaint of sexual harassment.

An aggrieved woman may be an employee or not. This means any woman who visits an establishment as an employee or for any other purpose, for e.g.: a restaurant, an office where she is not employed or a school for an event, and is sexually harassed can file a complaint before the Internal Complaints Committee of that organization. In case the organization is small (less than 10 employees, she will have to file a complaint before the Local Complaints Committee formed by the government at a district level)

What all does a company need to do to ensure compliance to this law?

1. Develop an Anti-Sexual Harassment Policy for their organization keeping in mind the dynamics of the industry as well encouraging people to report such instances fearlessly.
2. Treat sexual harassment as misconduct and have serious punishment for offending person.
3. Provide assistance to the members of ICC and ensure that they are trained in judicial procedures and have a basic idea about the principles of natural justice.
4. Provide complete assistance to any woman who is victimized sexually including helping her in the interim while her complaint is being examined, ensuring that she doesn’t come across the alleged perpetrator and that she gets justice irrespective of her standing in the company.
5. Provide assistance to the alleged victim if she is interested in filing a police complaint.
6. Monitor functioning of the ICC according to the law including filing of reports.
7. Maintain records as to how the company has acted on the recommendations of ICC and the reasons for such decisions.

And finally the most important and relevant one for you:

8. Display notice at any conspicuous place in the workplace, the penal consequences of sexual harassment cases; and the order constituting the Internal Complaints Committee.

This is the most important thing that you should look for in the places you visit. Ask questions to people working there and try and reach the concerned authorities. Remember that the purpose is to educate and not threaten. Ladies, if you find any place that you visit having a notice that displays the above mentioned, please upload that picture with tag to @letsungender 🙂

There is so much about this law and its nuances and benefits that this one writeup will become a book. So, we wrote a detailed and simplified version of this law and its benefits as an ebook. You may click here to download it for free and circulate it for free.

After reading this, you may wonder if this is actually possible to implement this law and have sexual harassment free workplaces in India. Yes it is possible.

Most of us do not believe that companies will take law seriously – they are. This law is being implemented for a lot of organizations I have come across. They are confused and struggling to clear a lot of doubts, but there are a lot of conscious places working towards building a safe work environment.

The ones who are not, are mostly those who are unaware of the existence of such a law and it is our responsibility to create this awareness.

I am doing my bit and inviting you to do your bit too. Educate yourself, educate the world around you on this law, and use it to prevent instances of sexual harassment. A lot of misuse is predicted from “women” ever since this law came up. Past precedents of misuse with respect to the Domestic Violence Act and Dowry Act have not left a positive impact and instead have made it difficult for the genuine cases to be pushed through.

Lets make sure that it doesn’t happen with this one!

Know more about Sexual Harassment at workplaces and strategies to tackle it at Cloudtrain.

Consult Pallavi Pareek on Sexual Harassment At Workplace and it’s Prevention, formation of ICC HERE.

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