Sexual Harassment at Workplace

Most of the working women lack knowledge about the legal recourse for incidents of sexual harassment at workplace. Many of the working population of women are ignorant of the judgment in the “Vishaka” case, passed in 1997. This judgment not only defines sexual harassment at the workplace but also lays down guidelines for the prevention of such harassment. It also lays guidelines about disciplinary action against the employee at fault.

The Supreme Court of India has included a host of behavioral aspects into what constitutes “sexual harassment”, in the Vishaka case. In its decision in Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997), the apex court told that “sexual harassment” is not confined to incidents of assault or rape.

rajini,

the awareness now is better than before.

but the issue is not many are ready to seek legal assistance.

they don't even discuss with friends, family to find out how to handle on their own before seeking legal assistance.

if you can get hold of the link to the guidelines or post a summary of that here, it would be great.

I thank you for reading my post.

According to the Supreme Court of India, sexual harassment can include "such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as 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 a sexual nature".



In a country wide survey, carried out by the NGO, “Shakshi", it is found that 80 per cent of the women respondents have confirmed that sexual harassment did exist at their workplace. A mere 23 percent said that they knew about the Vishaka guidelines.

In the Vishaka Case, the Supreme Court judgment laid down guidelines that prohibit sexual harassment. These guidelines are legally binding and must be enforced.

One of the guidelines makes it mandatory for the employer to include a prohibition against sexual harassment in their rules of conduct and discipline stipulated for employees.

The guidelines urge the employer to create a complaint committee. This committee should be headed, preferably, by women, and at least half of its members should be women.

The guidelines advise the employer to initiate disciplinary proceedings and possible criminal action against any violator. The employer should also take steps to ensure that the harassed women employees are not further troubled.

Yes, Piya you are right. As per the Supreme Court Guidelines, all offices and institutions need to set up a Complaint Committee headed by a woman to hear cases of sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment is pretty common in the University campuses where it takes a sinister form. There have been a lot of cases in Delhi University where both women teachers as well as students have complained of sexual harassment at the hands of male teachers. It takes a lot of courage to complain but it is seen that enquiry committees are set up and justice is in most cases delayed and at worst simply denied to the poor victim.

Dear Friends,

I thank you all for talking about this topic that gets hushed up most of the time. The survey that Rajni refers to was carried out on a cross-section of workplaces that include public, private and unorganized sectors. The study had a sample size of 2400.

According to K Geeta of Sakshi, “It is clear that ignorance of the sexual harassment law is high”. Most employers abstain from taking a proactive role in implementing the Vishaka guidelines. This is the root cause why the problem of sexual harassment at the workplace looms large. This attitude of employers should change for the better.

This refers to Bandana's reply. Things are a little better at JNU, New Delhi. We have the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GCASH) committee. Any sexual harrassment goes to GCASH and results are prompt.

I was reading an Interview of Geeta. She says “The spirit of the guidelines lies in its clause on prevention, but in most organizations, a ‘complaints committee’ is set up only once a case is reported. No wonder women employees remain unaware of the law”.

20 percent of the respondents said in the survey that the Vishakh guidelines had been adopted by the organization they worked with. Geeta says, “The study shows that establishment of the complaints committee is nominal and third party or NGO participation asked by the judgment is severely limited.”

I think, an employer must notify the employees of the prohibition of sexual harassment.

I am keenly following this thread.

An employer should educate the employees about the Vishaka Judgment. But that does not happen in most cases.

The Vishaka Judgment states: “Guidelines should be prominently notified to create awareness of the rights of female employees.”

Leena Menghaney of the HRLN (Human Rights Law Networks) feels that the Vishaka Judgment is one of the most lucid legal texts. She says, “It is easy to understand. You don’t need much knowledge of legalese to read it”.


I feel she is absolutely right. The Vishaka Judgment is a brief ruling. Reading it does not take more than five minutes.

I read an interview of Sonal Marwa. Sonal runs an NGO named Helping Hands. This organization offers free legal counseling to women.

Sonal said, “There is no legislation as such to deal with sexual harassment, and hence the Vishaka Guidelines are the only legal succor for working women facing sexual harassment.”

Menghaney, whom Ragini has referred to, says, “Even today, there are very few companies that have implemented the judgment. One could cite the Park Hotel and CBSE as organizations that have followed the guidelines, but there are not many more examples”.

I have learnt that implementation of Vishaka guidelines is higher in public sector than in private sector organizations.