Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

With increasing gender diversity in our workforce and greater proximity of men and women working together, Indian companies need to realize that sexual harassment could be a real problem.

In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed before the Supreme Court the court has emphasized the need for an effective legislation in India to curb sexual harassment of working women. In a Vishakha - vs - State of Rajasthan a Division Bench of the Supreme Court laid down a number of guidelines to remedy the existing legislative vacuum. The court has defined with reference to the definition of "Women Rights" in Section 2D, of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, "sexual harassment" as including any unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) like physical contact and advances, a demand or request for sexual favours, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non verbal conduct of sexual nature.

In the said case the Supreme Court referred to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and also the resultant violation of gender equality under Article 14 & 15 and right to life to personal liberty of women under Article 21 of the Constitution.

As a result of this judgment given in August 1997,. the Supreme Court has prescribed certain guidelines and norms for the employer. These are as follows: -

• Initiate appropriate action in accordance with law (criminal proceedings)
  
• Create an adequate complaint mechanism including a Complaint Committee headed by a woman (not less than half of its members should be women). It should also involve a third party either an NGO or any other body, which is familiar with the issue of sexual harassment.
• Ensure time bound treatment of complaints.
• Ensure that victims or witnesses are not victimized or discriminated against while dealing with complaints of sexual harassment.
• The victims of sexual harassment should have the option to seek transfer of the perpetrators or their own transfer.
• Appropriate disciplinary action should be initiated against the guilty in accordance with the service rules.

Sanlaap Legal Research cell tried to investigate the situation through a small study covering 40 central government offices. The finding s of the study pointed out:-

• The Supreme Court guidelines are well circulated in central government offices. About 88% of such offices have a clear idea about the judgment, though 12% of them are still vague about it .
• Sexual harassment is severe for women in the unorganized sector where jobs are not protected. However in Central Government offices generally these incidents hardly come into the forefront. The study showed that 92 % of the organizations have stated that no such incident occurred in their offices.
• 60% organizations declared that they have got a complaint committee as prescribed by the Supreme Court. While 24% had not formed any such committee. 8% of them stated that they have got other cells (e.g. Women's Cell, Personnel Department, Employee Grievance Cell etc. to deal with the issue.
• A majority of the respondents (76%) agreed that sexual harassment at workplace is a violation of the fundamental rights of 'Gender Equality' and the 'Right to Life and Liberty'.

With the wide publicity given to the Supreme Court judgment it seems that organizations have taken initial steps and need to set up more effective mechanisms to enforce the order at the workplace to create an enabling and safe work environment for women.

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