Report - Friedrich-Ebert

Transcription

Report of National Symposium
Gender Based Violence: Sexual
Harassment at Workplace
Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Coordinator
Supported by
Celin Thomas, Smita Waigankar
& Lia Cardelia
Organized by FriedrichEbert-Stiftung (FES),
India Office and
Department of
Economics, SNDT
Women’s University,
Mumbai
Held on 07th December
2013
Venue: Hotel Ramada
Plaza Palm Grove, Juhu,
Juhu Beach, Mumbai
This report analyses the key discussion points and
recommendations as discussed and summarized during the
National Consultation on Gender Based Violence: Sexual
Harassment at Workplace organized by Friedrich- Ebert
Stiftung in association with the Economics Department of
SNDT Women’s University at Mumbai on 07th December
2013.
Acknowledgment
The situation regarding gender based violence in India, as indeed the whole of South Asia is a reflection
of the fact that South Asia is the least gender sensitive Region in the world as per HDR South Asia. In a
brainstorming meeting organized by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), Gender Project Asia, in Kathmandu in
2013, gender based violence was identified as one of the most crucial issues afflicting the whole of
South Asia.
Accordingly, and in keeping with the focus of FES work in India and various countries in the Region,
Gender Based violence- sexual harassment at work place was identified as the theme for a national
consultation. The consultation was jointly organized by FES India office and Department of Economics,
SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai on 07th of December 2013, in Mumbai.
The national consultation process was achievable due to the proactive efforts taken by Friedrich Ebert
Stiftung, India office and the Economics Department of SNDT Women’s University. Ms. Damyanty
Sridharan of FES and Prof. Dr. Vibhuti Patel of SNDT Women’s University made the entire workshop
possible by engaging the most noted academicians, researchers, activists and lawyers on a common
platform.
The consultation process was aimed to provide recommendations to the rules which were in the process
of being drafted ever since the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 has been drafted
and published in the national official Gazette.
This report has been written by Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Coordinator along with the rapporteuring team
comprising of Ms. Lia Caldeira, Ms. Celin Thomas & Ms. Smita Waingankar. The report analyses the key
discussion points and recommendations as discussed and summarized during the National Consultation
on Gender Based Violence: Sexual Harassment at Workplace.
Report on National Consultation on GBV: Sexual Harassment at Workplace
Page 2
Contents
Acknowledgment .......................................................................................................................................... 2
Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................... 4
Inaugural Session .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Introduction of the theme ........................................................................................................................ 7
Discussion platforms: Technical sessions ................................................................................................... 10
Role of State- Legal system, NCW and State commissions: mindsets and attitudes at workplace ........ 10
Advocate Mihir Desai .......................................................................................................................... 11
Smriti Minocha .................................................................................................................................... 12
Monika Sakhrani ................................................................................................................................. 12
Shoma Sen Gupta ................................................................................................................................ 13
Manish Tulpule.................................................................................................................................... 13
Discussion............................................................................................................................................ 14
Present situation in the formal and informal sector .............................................................................. 14
Anagha Sarpotdar ............................................................................................................................... 15
Dr. Trupti Shah .................................................................................................................................... 18
Kamakshi Bhate................................................................................................................................... 20
Ms. Shobha ......................................................................................................................................... 21
Sangita Rege ........................................................................................................................................ 22
Discussion............................................................................................................................................ 24
Grievance Redressal System in Educational Institutions ........................................................................ 25
Dr. Sneha Palnitkar ............................................................................................................................. 25
Prof. Pushpa Bhave ............................................................................................................................ 27
Smt. Nandita Gandhi.......................................................................................................................... 28
Dr. Ananda Amritmahal .................................................................................................................... 29
Dr. Shahida Murtaza .......................................................................................................................... 30
Smt. Lalitha Dhara ............................................................................................................................. 31
Discussion .......................................................................................................................................... 32
Recommendations .................................................................................................................................. 33
Shalini Sinha ........................................................................................................................................ 33
Vote of Thanks by Dr. Ruby Ojha ........................................................................................................ 35
Page 3
Executive Summary
Gender Based violence – Sexual harassment at Workplace
The United Nations General Assembly defines "violence against women" as "any act of gender based
violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women,
including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or
in private life." The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women noted that this
violence could be perpetrated by assailants mainly men, family members and even the "State" itself.
Worldwide governments and organizations actively work to combat violence against women through a
variety of programs. A UN resolution designated 25 November to 10 December as International
fortnight for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The patriarchal structure of society and the accompanying gender discrimination has increased women’s
vulnerability to violence and its consequences at every stage of life, from womb to tomb. Although
various organizations including women’s groups in India have been articulating and working with various
agencies to address this societal malaise the outcomes have been a mixed bag of responses.
The unfortunate Nirbhaya case of Dec 16 2012 brought the grossest form of violence against women
once again in the lime light. The Justice Verma committee Report in its aftermath has led to changes in
law, even though not to the extent desired by human rights activists and women’s groups. The equally
horrifying Mathura rape case in the 1980s resulted in changes in law concerning custodial rape.
Unfortunately repeatedly and regularly we still find various cases of violence against women on the
street, at home, and also in the work place reported in media.
Keeping the key issue in perspective, the national consultation was organized with a clearly defined
objective of recommending to the bodies which are involved in developing rules of the newly postulated
Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.
The issues deliberated in the consultation are:
The existing situation in the formal and informal sectors with respect to sexual harassment at
workplace
Experiences from specific sectors-educational institutions, local self government bodies, GOs
and NGOs: How Sexual Harassment Committees function?
Page 4
Participants at the National Consultation on Gender Based Violence: Sexual Harassment at Workplace
Role of State, NCW and State commissions
Mindsets and attitudes at workplace
The new prospects for work for youth – prerequisites to check GBV at workplace
Laws and legislations – existing, pending, proposed
Challenges
Recommendations
The national consultation was jointly organized by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, India office and the
Economics Department of SNDT Women’s University on the 07th December 2013, Concord I, Ramada
Plaza Palm Grove at Juhu in Mumbai. The day long consultation saw participation of noted
academicians, civil society members, activists, researchers and advocates who have closely been
working or associated with the cause of making India safer for women.
The inaugural and the four technical sessions looked at different aspects of the Sexual Harassment of
Women at Workplace including the recent Act and how it can help in addressing concerns and offer
justice to the affected parties.
The technical sessions analyzed the legal systems and regulatory bodies as well as the policies and
existing guidelines and their effectiveness prior to the Act. It also looked at the formal and informal
sector and how the harassment goes unnoticed in such areas. The grievance redressal system in
Page 5
educational institutions, challenges and recommendation were also discussed during the technical
sessions.
Some of the most astounding questions raised and points highlighted were:
Effective inclusion of sectors- domestic workers, etc
Definition of women
Discussion around compensation, how much by when and who decides and who pays and how?
Onus of employer
Inquiry committee role
SH with jail authorities, construction workers, agriculture sector, defence & armed forces,
children
Financial implications and personal implications
Gender sensitization in curriculum and academia, training to all
Rural and tribal areas whose jurisdiction should it come under and who will redress their issues
Requirement of gender resource centers and desks at various places
Appropriate behavior guidelines
Media sensitization
Awareness in the judiciary at all levels and media, government, employer, employees is required
Perception of human dignity
Institutionalize monitoring- watchdog committees
Inaugural Session
The proceedings of the day began with an opening note from Ms. Mandvi of FES and Dr. Vibhuti Patel,
Economics Dept. of SNDT Women’s University. The organizing team behind the national consultation
composing of FES & SNDT members was introduced during this time. It was followed by a welcome
address by Ms. Damyanty Sridharan of FES; she explained the proactive role played by the political
system in Germany wherein all political parties are associated with foundations. She elaborated on the
FES activities related to peace, social justice and democracy.
Stressing on the topic of consultation, Ms. Sridharan highlighted that the major portion of a women’s
time is utilized out of home either at work or performing activities supporting family and work and the
sense of safety and security she needs to continue doing so.
Prof. Dr. Veena Devasthali of the Department of Economics at SNDT who co-chaired the inaugural
session with Ms. Damyanty Sridharan, spoke about SNDT’s role in improving the status of women in
their own way. Ms. Pushpa Bhave of Swadhar was then felicitated By Dr. Vibhuti Patel for being a
guiding force over several years of her proactive contribution in the area of women development and
gender sensitization through academics.
Page 6
(L-R) Ms. Damyanty Sridharan of FES, Dr. Veena Devasthali and Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Economics Dept. of SNDT
Women’s University
Introduction of the theme
Dr. Vibhuti Patel, Head of Economics Department at SNDT Women’s University introduced the theme of
the national consultation. She presented various news items, myths, perspectives and legal reforms
being brought about over the years and the recent events that have rocked the nation to wake up to the
reality of persisting gender based violence in India. Gang rape of Nirbhaya, media person at Shakti Mill,
law intern and the Tarun Tejpal sexual harassment of his employee have been talking about the act of
violence that oscillates from subtle intimidation to extreme torture leading to even death.
DR. Patel highlighted that todays’ deliberation, needs to put rules in place that would be the supporting
document for the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013. In her theme paper and
presentation, Dr. Patel spoke about various sexual harassment cases that came into national limelight
due to massive protests as listed below.
Rupan Deo Bajaj, an IAS officer in Chandigarh, against 'super cop' K P S Gill (1990)
Page 7
An activist from the All India Democratic Women's Association, against the environment
minister in Dehra Dun (1991)
An airhostess of Air India against her colleague, in Mumbai (1990)
A Secretary against Chief Minister of Goa (1990)
Medha Kotwal Lele vs. Union of India and others (2000)
Apparel Export Promotion Council vs A K Chopra (1999)
Nalco chief found guilty in sexual harassment and his service terminated (2002)
An IAS officer in Thiruvananthapuram, against the state minister (2002)
A woman Director of KPMG against 6 top bosses including CEOs (2007)
Sun TV Sexual Harassment Case- Response from Women Journalists (March 2013)
Two intern law students against the Supreme Court Judge (November, 2013)
A journalist from Tehalka against its Editor in Chief (Nov. 20, 2013)
She spoke about the provisions provided in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as mentioned below;
Section 354 that deals with the 'criminal assault of women to outrage women's modesty',
Section 506 that tackles criminal intimidation and Section 509 that punishes an individual/
individuals for using a 'word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman'. These
sections left the interpretation of 'outraging women's modesty' to the discretion of the police
officer.
As per section 228 A revealing identity of victim of sexual violence is an offense
Dr. Patel spoke about the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and the Sexual
Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 while clarifying
the Vishakha Directive, 1997 which was one of the first laws made to address sexual harassment.
Making Physical contact, demanding or requesting for sexual favours, making sexually coloured remarks,
showing pornography and any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual
nature, for example, leering, telling dirty jokes, making sexually coloured remarks about a person's body,
etc. were few things or behaviors which fell under the gamut of sexual harassment and could be tried
under the Vishakha Directive.
Responsibility of Employers by both, The Vishakha guidelines and the Sexual Harassment of Women at
Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 categorically state that every employer
shall—
a. provide a safe working environment at the workplace which shall include safety from the persons
coming into contact at the workplace;
b. display at any conspicuous place in the workplace, the penal consequences of sexual harassments;
and the order constituting, the Internal Committee under subsection (I) of section 4;
Page 8
c. organise workshops and awareness programmes at regular intervals for sensitising the employees
with the provisions of the Act and orientation programmes for the members of the Internal Committee
in the manner as may be prescribed;
Dr. Patel highlighted some major challenges that lay ahead while formulating the rules for the new act
viz.,
For any sexual harassment law to be successful in India it is important to be aware of the
difficulties confronting our society and ways to overcome them. There is a need to gendersensitize our society so that the victim does not feel guilty and is encouraged to report any form
of harassment.
The victim's privacy must be protected
The police and the judiciary, in particular, also need to be gender-sensitized. There should be
speedy redressal and an increase in the conviction rate
Dr. Patel’s address had a key highlight on the four perspectives on Sexual Harassment at Workplace
(SHW) which is shown in the table below.
Feminist
Legal
Organisational
View A
View B
Power relation, male
over woman
Exploitative
Inter-personal
Inter-personal
Constitutes economic
coercion
Involves both
implicit and explicit
terms of
employment
Consists of
misinterpretation or
misunderstanding of
person's intentions
Improper use of
power
to extort gratification
Threatens women's
livelihood
Used as a basis for
employment
decisions
'Love affair gone sour'
Treats women as sex
objects
Reflects women's
subordinate status in
society
Produces
consequences from
submission to/or
refusal of advances
Personal matter. Why
should organisation
get involved?
Coercive,
exploitative,
improper
Page 9
Asserts women's sex
role over her work role
Promotes
intimidating, hostile
or offensive work
environment
Can hurt reputation of
accused
Parallels rape
Asserts women's sex
role over work role
Aberrant behaviour
Dr. Patel emphasized the plight of a complainant who hesitates to voice Sexual Harassment (SH) as they
lose their jobs, most complaints are dodged by stating misinterpretations of the intention of the
perpetrators, and there is a clear threat to the livelihood of the complainant.
The complaint is often seen as insubordination and used as a basis for unemployment. Often women are
blamed for encouraging the man and inviting such actions. There is perpetual witch hunting, loss of job,
isolation of the victim. Most institutions say it is her personal matter, not company’s task. Typical
erroneous behavior by most companies is seen in cases involving SH. SH promotes hostile, intimidation
work environment. Most people defend the accused especially if the accused is a high ranking officer.
There is a greater need to sensitize and distinguish between a women‘s sex role to her job role.
She concluded her address with specific stress on the role of law enforcement agents such as the Police
who are normally insensitive to the victim. The victim and its counsel have to still use Vishakha
guidelines as there are no rules for the new Act.
Discussion platforms: Technical sessions
Each technical session dealt with a specific focus area which needed discussion, perspective, guidance
and direction to be able to strengthen the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention,
Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The technical sessions were chaired by eminent and noted
academicians, researchers, activists and advocates from different corners of India who have been using
the existing laws and structures to address SH cases in their own sectors.
TECHNICAL SESSION 1
Role of State- Legal system, NCW and State commissions: mindsets and
attitudes at workplace
Journey from Vishakha Directive (1997) to the Sexual Harassment of Women at
Workplace Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
Page 10
This session had 5 presenters and one moderator (chair & discussant- Ms. Sneha Khandekar). The
panelists or presenters of this session were Advocate Mihir Desai, Human Rights Lawyer from Mumbai,
Smriti Minocha, Partners in Law and Development from New Delhi, Advocate Monika Sakhrani from
School of Law, TISS in Mumbai, Dr. Soma Sen Gupta, Director at Samhita in Kolkata, Advocate Manisha
Tulpule, Women’s Rights Lawyer in Mumbai. Each presenter had 10 minutes allocated to them to
express their views, raise questions and share their experiences while being involved in cases involving
SH.
(L-R) Monika Sakhrani, Manisha Tulpule, Smriti Minocha, Mihir Desai, Dr. Soma Sen Gupta and Sneha
Khandekar
Advocate Mihir Desai
Advocate Desai spoke about the historical background of SH at workplace. He said that Vishakha is a
landmark judgment from 2 routes from women’s movement/ rights route and women’s workers/ labour
route. He stated that 19th century belief was that employers and employees at free market act as equals.
So if the employee thinks to himself that if he/she agreed to work in harsh conditions then I (employee
here) implicitly accepted the work conditions also, so the employers’ job is to provide wages only. So the
provision of a safe work environment was also compromised due to this very mindset; the idea was that
employers were not meant to provide safe work environment.
Only in USA, there were laws that mandated and asked the employers to provide a safe working place.
The law was struck down by Supreme Court there, saying it was anti-commerce. Only in 1926, the law
Page 11
obliged employers in India to provide a safe working place to employees. The premise that it is the
responsibility of the employers to provide a safe working environment is used for SH also. In 1997,
Vishakha judgment came out; maternity benefits act, equal remuneration talks about equality of
services were more rampant and gained importance also. Advocate Desai stressed that SH was not part
of any law, standing orders were made, and no employer was obliged to do anything about it. 354A
being amended made difference.
He stated that Vishakha raises 2 debates that Judges are interpreters of laws, they can’t make law, but in
the case of Vishakha guidelines essentially a judge invoked the law based on the country’s ratification of
an international convention. The judges clarified their verdict on Vishakha by stating that India is
signatory to CEDAW, India has ratified CEDAW- and thus parliament has to pass a law only then there is
law to be invoked. If there is no conflicting law here against CEDAW, so SH will not be tolerated as
something good as there is no law here but since CEDAW is ratified so we will consider there is a law. SH
is violence against women, her right to dignity as it violates dignity, violates right to life which is
fundamental. According to Articles 14 & 15 it’s also discriminating, against equality. That is the reason
we need a special law for SH.
He mentioned that Vishakha brought in definition of SH- hostile work environment and quid pro quo.
Prevention clause of the new SHW Act includes redressal mechanism but also prevention mechanism
must be discussed and included in the rules. He mentioned that there needs to be clarity whether an
employer must report SH grievance to the police, how to deal with malicious complaints/ fake
complaints and how do we look at the inquiry (as only preliminary, the inquiry). To understand nature of
inquiry one needs to understand whether you need a preliminary or final elaborate inquiry. Inclusion of
a Male inquiry officer and or a neutral committee is needed to be clarified.
Smriti Minocha
Ms. Minocha mentioned the popular Medha Kotwal case with context to SH. She also stated that in
Parliament when the bill was presented, there was question on what if the law gets misused. She also
highlighted that the SHW Act 2013 ignores private and agriculture labour completely. She clarified that
employees over 10 in a company are covered by Factory act and can seek some solace with respect to
SH. However she also mentioned the Ms. Geetika Sharma case wherein she committed suicide as being
a contract employee, there is no scrutiny of the contract to protect such a floating workforce. Law may
not extend to contract employees and unorganized labour also. She mentioned that Maharashtra govt
has started registering domestic workers. According to her the Seema Lipcha’s judgment was a good
one for private and public sectors to take a cue from. She felt there is a need to define appropriate
behavior for male and females; some set of guidelines is needed. Ms. Minocha also stated that India
ranks at 129 in gender equality index, only after Afghanistan. She felt the new act must also cover
Educational institutes, especially students, defence services and even tutorial classes must be factored
in.
Monika Sakhrani
Advocate Monika Sakhrani pointed out that there is no clarity where the complaint has to be made.
Whether it could be the workplace of man or women, there is confusion here. Dodging needs to be
Page 12
minimized. Local complaints committee chairperson need not be a woman, however in her experience
the Local complaints committee, will not take the complaint. She raised a question and a doubt whether
the Criminal court will give the compensation and justice and also asked what the role of the police is in
SH? She cited a study conducted on the compensation offered under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005
that revealed that of the many women asking for compensation - only 17 cases received compensation
from 700 cases where it is settled out of 2500 cases studies in all. She questioned what is the
compensation given to women in case of SH? Why shouldn’t the employer be made to compensate the
victim as he failed to provide a safe working environment? On what basis do you do a recovery from an
accused who may not be earning enough? Challenge for compensation was an important point raised by
her.
She quoted that the Inquiry procedure is very opaque; employee can participate in the procedure of
redressal. Copy of the findings and procedures is a must and is to be given to both the parties. She
stated that judicial or legal remedy is not provided, internal complaints committee proceedings do not
indicate the next step.
Shoma Sen Gupta
She stated that complaints at her organization are handled through help lines. Vishakha guidelines
mandated employers to constitute complaint committee; services rules were not completely amended
is her observation in Kolkata. She quoted that of the 56 govt dept in West Bengal after 6 yrs of Vishakha
guidelines into force, many of them have yet to constitute such committee but had done it in paper but
employees have no clue. Activities had to be reported annually, whether they were compiled or not; No
idea and clue. Complaints were delayed because nobody knows what behavior is classified under SH.
Location of SH and mode of SH also needs to be described and elaborated or it will lead to dismissal of
case. She wondered that when the management refuses to comply with the complaints committee,
how does one deal with this behavior of complacency. At times the management is sitting on the
reports for years. She stated that power structure of an organisation makes it difficult for women to
work while fighting hostility.
She highlighted that there is no mechanism to deal with complaints from the informal sector. She said
that Labour commissioners can act as nodal agencies to collect details from complaints committee. She
also stressed that definition of women in the Act needs to be defined and elaborated. As there are many
transgender facing similar trauma - how do we apply or extend these laws to them for relief is another
question she raised.
Manish Tulpule
In early 2000, there was no committee in Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC or now known as
MCGM) as per Vishakha guidelines. She narrated her own plight and struggles to constitute a committee
on sexual harassment which she and another colleague of her suffered as they protested against a
corruption racket in the organization. It is only after they went to media for being heard that some
concrete steps were taken eventually.
Page 13
She also mentioned Kalyani home, where the manager ran a brothel. She said that rules are required for
CWC, WCD depts., for children’s homes for deaf & mute, mentally challenged children. Guidelines are
required and hopes that they are also covered and governed by the new Act.
Discussion
Ms. Sneha Khandekar summarized the first technical session by saying that 16 yrs after Vishakha
Guidelines young lawyers fought for SH by clerks in court rooms. She said that laws do not apply to
judges like RTI, Vishakha guidelines. She emphasized that laws should be applicable to judges of
Supreme Court also.
In the discussion, representative of Stree Mukti Sanghtana asked where women from unorganized
sector should go. How do they seek justice? There was a common agenda discussed that NGOs need to
upgrade their expertise in the issue, if they have to be part of any committee. Another point discussed
was how many inquiries for a SH complaint is required. There was a need to define what is a work place
and also absence of an employer especially in the informal sector. Shoma mentioned that there are no
guidelines for inquiry of an SH.
Mihir stated that SH is misconduct. He also clarified that NCW is recommendatory body, cannot order
anything, it has no adjudicatory power. Inquiry comes out with recommendation, which leaves it to the
employers discretion to comply with or not. Man should be allowed to cross examine the victim in a
departmental inquiry, according to him.
Monika stressed on a 3 pronged procedure, complaint received falls in the jurisdiction or not, proper
behavior. Hear both parties separately. Then the next round will be confrontational. 3rd stage- witnesses
are heard and their statements taken. Confronting women victims in safe space with the accused is
imperative and can be encouraged.
Ms. Sneha Khandekar summarized the session by mentioning that committees from preventive
perspective needs to be discussed and covered. Organizations are not willing to do it. Principle of
natural justice- have to follow certain procedures is a must. NGO person’s role is crucial. Documentation
is very essential, NGO do not consider it important but affects intervention. Capacity building of NGO
members is crucial. NGO representative must have understanding of law or else women may not get
help in getting justice.
TECHNICAL SESSION 2
Present situation in the formal and informal sector
Sexual harassment at workplace, redefining workplace and stressing role of
employers
Second technical session was on the existing situation in formal and informal sectors with respect to
sexual harassment at work place chaired by Ms. Sonal Shukla, Director Vacha. The speakers were Ms.
Anagha Sarpotdar, Feminist Activist & Research Scholar from TISS-Mumbai, followed by Dr. Trupti Shah,
Page 14
Director at Sahiyar in Vadodara, Ms. Kamakshi Bhate of MCGM SP Gender Resource Centre, Ms. Shoba
from Stree Mukti Sanghatna and Ms. Sangeeta Rege from CEHAT.
Anagha Sarpotdar
Ms. Sarpotdar introduced herself as a PHD student from TISS and discussed her PhD topic on Sexual
Harassment (SH) at workplace. She said that her research looked at the social-legal aspects within
Mumbai in the organised sector. From her experiences and her research findings she could shed light on
how complaints are dealt by the employer’s and by the complaint committee post Vishaka guidelines
given by the Supreme Court. Issues discussed by her included the employer response to complaints,
practices and procedures followed by HR departments, composition and functioning of complaints
committees, policies on sexual harassment and role of external agencies (Statutory Bodies) : NCW,
MSCW, Labour Commissioner, Police, Criminal Courts, High Courts.
(L-R) Sangeeta Rege , Shobha, Kamakshi Bhate, Dr. Trupti Shah, Anagha Sarpotdar and Sonal Shukla
She said that “these are external agencies that came into play / picture whenever there is an escalation
of a complain beyond employer. Usually when it comes to the issue of sexual harassment there is denial
from the employers.” Employers say “We are a clean organization, we do not have sexual harassment
cases, Indian culture is so great” now that we have the law in place and the Tehelka case but before this
was generally the response and when the discussion dies down again we are going to have the same
Page 15
response “Oh we do not have cases of sexual harassment” and if at all you say I know of a case reported
of sexual harassment in your organization the employer says “Yes, those are few cases and are stray
cases. We don’t have a consistent reporting of cases and we need not worry because this is not our
primary activity eg. Primary activity for banks is banking activities and for educational institute its
teaching etc hence we do not have want to give time for this issues”.
She opined that, “when people like us continuously talk about the issues then we are seen as if we are
obsessed by it. When it comes to multinational companies, many of the multinational follow the global
code of conduct, so they refuse to comply with the Vishaka guidelines.”
According to her, they say “Why do we need to form a committee as we have an emergency helpline
where she can report, hence why do we have to follow Indian laws” so that is one of the problem. Now
people are rushing to set up committees, but till the Tehelka case was reported, and there was no fear
of criminal action many people felt that there is no need of a committee. The HR dept not just in private
sector, some government organization, huge government organizations I have observed said that “The
HR dept will do it themselves, they will talk to the women, to the man, may be get him transferred so we
do not need a separate committee.” They do not want to invest on additional manpower for that type of
work, time, separate room to operate from and other resources and energy that goes into an enquiry
committee. So they say that their HR dept will handle it. Everybody is focused on misuse and now the
Act which was enacted in Apr’2013 has the section on false and malicious complaints and people are
very happy as mostly people are focused and worried about misuse rather than use. However, as per
research sexual harassment is under reported. Why are most people focused on misuse? The other day
when I was having a session with some IPS officers at TISS and when I spoke about the social legal aspect
of sexual harassment, the whole session was spent discussing about the misuse by women of it rather
than talking about how to use it.
This is the scenario in most of the organisations, mostly the complaint committee is not there and even
if they are there they are only on paper, non functional and they do action only when a case is reported
so there is a mad rush when the complain is reported to form a committee. There are committee
members who do not even know that they are members of the committed because their names are just
planted and they are forced to be on the committee. The immediate employer response which is also
reflected in my PHD data is that there is a disbelief that whenever a women complaints the first thing is
that “Oh she must be lying or she has some scores to settle with the man so she is doing it out of
revenge. If she is not lying, people definitely feel that she is exaggerating the whole thing.”
Also there is this whole problem of naming it as sexual harassment, many people say that it was bad
behaviour, indecent behaviour, inappropriate behaviour, but nobody wants to name it as sexual
harassment. To make the initial coverage in the tehelka case also they said that some untoward incident
has happened, so that is the problem. Then obviously in many cases employers do not want to take
action against the man because they openly say that the man is important for the organisation who is
bringing X amount of business to the organisation, whereas the women’s work is seen as no value
added to the company. It is also implied that the woman was not performing and hence she has
Page 16
complained to probably cover up for her poor performance. The company either creates circumstances
where the woman is forced to resign or a panel will initiate some departmental enquiry against her,
hence forcing her to either be terminated or give her resignation. Also many women when they escalate
complaints to the national commission or state commission for woman the response which they get
from the employer is “why did you go there? why did you go outside the organisation? You are bringing
bad name to the organisation”.
In spite of repeated complaints of sexual harassment there is no immediate action. All the cases that I
had intervened as a practitioner or as a researcher, woman have said that they have repeatedly
complained and it is not just one complain. Complaints are logged verbally as well as in writing, but in
spite of this there is no action and penalisation. When a complaint is reported, people say that you are a
young woman and you will face this everywhere, so get used to this. Sexual harassment is normal hence
the senior managements ignore the complaints. In the KPMG case a similar outcome came out of a
complaint which was reported. The senior management did not pay attention; there was a huge file the
woman had which included over 500 emails which she had written to the senior management, the
oversized organisation board within India office. Harassers are protected and backed by the employers;
their legal bills are borne by the company. If they want to resign and go, they are given honourable exits.
With regards to retaliation the new law is trying to address the hostile working environment. Retaliation
is the most important thing in the case of sexual harassment. The minute the women reports she first
has to go through trauma as mentioned above, but after reporting there is retaliation. There are two
ways of retaliation i.e. retaliation by the employer and the other by the harasser. The harasser is in the
powerful position, he also does the performance appraisals so he will write bad appraisals and in spite of
sexual harassment complaints the appraisal is still done by the same person. Relevant work is taken
away. The woman who was appointed as a purchase officer is made to work on different things for
which she was not recruited or she is made to sit without work. There is isolation at work place; her
colleagues are specifically instructed not to speak to her as she is a trouble maker. Women have also
shared with us that during lunch they sit alone even their friends do not talk to them in office, however
when they meet the same colleagues outside the office they inform them that a particular man has told
them not to speak to her as you are a trouble maker.
Suspensions, termination, forced resignation and the reputation of the complainer is damaged by the
employer or the harasser in the market so that the women post resignation/termination is not able to
seek employment anywhere because the news spreads in the market i.e. she is a person who creates
problem wherever she goes. There is lack of transparency, accountability, and the complaints are dealt
informally. Sexual harassment policies are not available to all the employees. Complaint committee are
not following the proper procedures. Complain committees also justify sexual harassment on the basis
that there was no intention to harass, also there is no proof or your performance is bad so you
complaint, absence of well laid down policies.
To conclude the presenter spoke about the NGO member on the committee. A lot of HR consultants are
appointed as the NGO member on the committee and they fake or pretend that they are social workers
or they are known to be doing some kind of social service, but actually when you check their profile on
Page 17
face book and LinkedIn you see that they are proper HR consultants who are appointed by companies
are faking as NGO members. Hence this is the biggest challenge according to the presenter as far as the
private sector is concerned. It is also observed that when the defendant has gone to court asking for
replacement of such people , they have produced false documents stating that they belong to some
NGO foundation which is corporate funded and courts have refused to replace such people. This is the
biggest challenge when it comes to outside members.
Dr. Trupti Shah
Dr. Trupti Shah started by stating that Sahiyar started working on this issue a year before Vishaka
guidelines were issued, in the year 1996 when a sexual harassment case of a student, by a group of
student from other community came up to the MS University and it was absolutely communalized. As a
women organisation we would not like to treat this as a case of Hindu V/s Muslim it was an issue of
sexual harassment and let us have a mechanism in the campus to address this type of issue and a
process was started. There was a person with a progressive outlook as the Vice Chancellor (
(Padmaramachandran) who supported the initiative. It went quite further but when she left everything
was gone.
And then Vishaka came. Since then we are trying to have a committee against SH on the campus of MS
university, till today there is not a proper committee in MS university . Meanwhile the Medha Kotawal
case which originated from Vadodara, when a PHD student was harassed by her guide went till the
supreme court. Subsequently, several organisations formed ad hoc committees but not as per Vishaka
guidelines and hence not properly formed. Whenever there is something it is completely the
mouthorgan of the RSS, they will put their person on the committee (the ad hoc committee) which is
not a proper functioning committee - so this is the state. For the informal sector, there is no guidelines.
In some cases like in domestic violence when a women or domestic worker from the informal sector
comes to us we have exerted our pressure as an organisation and are able to give at least the wages of
that women. We are not able to punish or give any kind of punishment to the harasser but when she is
thrown out because of sexual harassment we at least get her wages. As we are aware the Vishaka
guidelines have not addressed the issues of the informal structure and now in this new law we have a
provision on local complaint committee. How will the local complain committee take place? Who will do
it? It is written in the law that the district magistrate will be appointed by the state govt and he will form
the committee. But how to go about it? Once the rule is formed by the state government then we will
have to go to the state government again.
Recently we had a meeting in Vadodara with women organisations in Gujarat. We thought of writing to
the state government that you form the local complaints committee, but we were stuck at this point
that unless the central government forms a rule the state government cannot do anything. So they pass
the buck to the central government. For the formal sectors the experiences are not at all different,
people are saying yes when there is crisis they will call us, we are on complains committee of several
central government organisations like BSNL, ONGC, P&T Dept. Income tax, but where there are some
good person in the committee they will have some kind of meeting once in a year otherwise it is just on
paper. Even if you say let us have a meeting they will only reply yes we will have, we will have this goes
Page 18
on for more than 6 months but there is no meeting held. In fact the chairperson of the committee are
themselves not motivated to do anything as this is a burden for them also, they think if they do anything
proactively they will be sidelined within the organisation, so they do not want to take up this type of
issues very seriously.
Unless any case comes up the committee does not function in any of the central government
department also. If we talk about state government, most of the departments, in fact even the legal
department of the state government were not aware about Vishaka till 2008, which is what they say in
RTI. In 2008 a very brutal case of sexual assault (a gang rape) took place in PTC college in Patan, After
the case we once again took this matter and asked everyone if they have a committee or not. An RTI was
filed with the government of Gujarat. Most of the departments were not aware of the committee they
did not know. After the RTI was filed about 31 departments issued a circular and formed some
committee and sent them a list of people on the committee. When we called the people they said that
they do not know about the committee or they are on the list of committee members, hence this is the
status of implementation as far as the state of Gujarat is concerned. Whenever there is this type of case
which attracts media attention we take up this issue and push at least some organisations to do
something about this otherwise it is a non-issue for most of the people.
Again when Delhi rape took place we approached several government offices and reminded them that
you had sent us the list in 2008, now what happened, nobody knew. But we made it a point that since
lot of things are coming in the media, lot of people talking about this issue we must use this opportunity
at least to have some kind of mechanism in government offices and with consistent pressure on the
collector of Vadodara, they organised a meeting with all the different government department heads
and asked us to talk to them on this issue. Only one department had a committee! We insisted that all
departments should have a committee, we prepared material for them with regards to Vishaka
guidelines and the material was distributed. Out of the 50 department 25 of them formed committee
and a training session was conducted with them. Slowly things have started moving but later people
forget about it and again it goes back to naught.
NGO representative is a very big problem in Gujarat, hardly 2 or 3 organisations take up this type of
issues. Otherwise most other organisations including women organisations are also not willing to get
into sexual harassment committee, they think it is a waste of time and they have to be without pay on
these committees. It is mentioned that there should be some budgetary allocations but up till now there
is no compensation given for sitting on the committee, nobody was willing. Not just the HR consultants
but all the different kinds of organisations representatives will be there on this committee and this is the
major challenge for us. If we want some type of implementation then large scale training material for
committee is a must. We have tried to do at our level in Guajarati in some offices and we have got some
positive results, but we are too small in in terms of outreach.
Page 19
Kamakshi Bhate
The next Speaker Dr. Kamakshi Bhate is a Teacher in a medical college. She is also part of the working
committee of the prevention of sexual harassment at workplace in MCGM along with MS Shena
Khandekar in BMC.
MCGM(Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) is the first organisation of the country that has
adopted the Vishaka guidelines and formed a policy against sexual harassment at workplace with
intention of zero tolerance and that is what is written in the policy and the policy is framed by Mehir.
Guidelines are mandatory and legally binding. Before this policy was formed it was decided that there
will be a policy for which a need assessment was carried out whether we really require a policy?
Whether really there is sexual harassment? Though all this must have come as a reaction to what
Manisha mentioned earlier, still MCGM did form the policy and follow the guidelines.
Whether MCGM / BMC are safe for women and others? I was part of the need assessment survey team
and I believed (even after having feminist friends like Vibuthi, Sonal etc. ) that Mumbai was safe for
women. (even after having a living case of Aruna Sanbagi ). Meetings were carried out at various
workplaces like hospitals, schools, medical colleges. Women, student and even many men participated
in the meetings and we realised that there is a lot of sexual harassment. So many students came up
from some prestigious institutes and took such names that we were really aghast and we really did not
know how to react to those instances. Sexual harassment is of various kinds especially when touching
body parts, conditional promotions and unwelcome invitations. Invitations start may be by calling the
opposite person for some pooja or to coffee and such things.
When enquiries come up questions like why did you go for the pooja etc come up. Before she used to go
for marriage, birthday party, pooja etc and now she is complaining, such things came up when she
started the enquiries and all that. Actually at the end we found out that so many complaints are there.
In 2004 the policy was passed with so many pro active people and we have kept those names because as
Shena said there are some people who have been proactive in the BMC and who have been supportive.
In 2004 many people participated in this whole process and it is important to keep links with the
supportive ones.
Actually there are about 64 local complaints committees and 7 more are added now because MCGM has
a very large workplace, so many colleges, hospitals are there, peripheral hospitals, wards office are
there and mainly it is a service place so even third party is there it is not only the person who is working
in the workplace even the third party personnel like students, patients, people coming to the ward office
for various reasons requirements etc. There are three levels, first the local level the complaints
committee, then the second level is the working committee and the third level is the apex committee
which is the appealing body. The working committee looks into the whole process whether it was done
according to the Vishaka guidelines, whether an NGO member was present, proper paper work was
done or not. All this is checked because later on it can be a challenge.
Strategies for implementation: Actually after making the 64 complaints committees it was not easy to
have complaints committees at all 64 places, all members did not know what to do and even all were
not trained, hence the whole job has been done by Sneha Khandekar for the last 10 years. She has been
Page 20
continuously training all the 64 committees every month. Capacity building is part of the training and we
have created material for people who are undergoing this training as this is not just one training, hence
we have to have some handouts, posters and all that they can take back. According to their requirement
the IC material was created for offices, hospitals, schools, the IC material is about what this committee
is, who the chairperson should be how to contact them. What are the means of sexual harassment in
accordance to the Vishaka guidelines and even for schools we have created a module for students,
teachers and parents, because student should know that they have somebody whom they can go to and
talk and the teachers know that they have somebody who they can talk to.
Infrastructure : in the complaints committee at work we have the chairperson who is a woman, 50% of
the committee members are also women and NGO members, this is also a great task as we have to give
individual NGO members 3 – 4 offices. The apex committee at the centre is under the chairmanship of
Dpty. Municipal commissioner. Two days intensive training which is conducted on gender sensitivity,
power relationship and the supreme courts guidelines and the MCGM policies. How to handle cases,
how to be sensitive towards it, gender sensitive, how proper documentation is done. Experience sharing
works the best because when we share the experiences the chairperson feel that even I can do the
same, this is possible or these things have happened. Whatever recommendations are given has been
accepted, even to the level of removal. Sometime it happens that recommendation is done or not you
cannot come to know. When the accused is a higher level person (Officer) that time we do not know
what has happened otherwise we come to know very easily.
Do’s and Don’ts : Responsibilities of the complaints committees are resolving informally/formally
complaints and working at prevention of sexual harassment. Regular monthly meetings, these are IC
materials produced about the committee etc, what was sensitive leadership, policies, proactive NGO
support, ongoing capacity building efforts, regular monitoring at all levels and quick redressal that will
help. What has not worked was the challenges i.e. unwillingness to be part of the committee sometime
by the chairperson, keep enquiry procedures gender sensitive, unaddressed harassments when students
are complaining, patients are complaining who do not come back still we have inquires about it, union
pressures are the worst as seen in news papers, all the time answering RTI for no reason.”
Ms. Shobha
Shoha started the session by introducing herself as a worker of Stree Mukti Samiti. Stree Mukti Sagatna
works along with the rag pickers and backward community. Miss Shobha mentioned that there is sexual
harassment faced by the rag pickers community. The Sexual harassment law has a mention of informal
sector too. The rag pickers start their day as early as 5.00 am to collect waste and work till evening and
these workers face a lot of sexual harassment.
Secondly many women go to the BMC dumping ground to collect waste, not only were the women
sexually harassed but also raped. The organisation has been trying to provide justice to the workers who
have been sexual harassed but are facing a lot of problems but have not yet succeed so they need to
think of another plan of action. We are working with private company, Government, etc. We are
encouraging our community members to undergo training and creating awareness on sexual
Page 21
harassment and what kind of behaviour comes under sexual harassment and such behaviour should not
be tolerated. They are members of almost 21 committee with the help / trainings of activist such as Miss
Anagha, Sonal etc.
The case v/s government organising are in process but the cases in Pvt sectors are not heard. There are
almost 3 cases registered and for all the meeting the misuse of the law is being discussed. As there is
only one NGO member on the committee she does not have much say in the meeting. The NGO member
is just a supervisor and so she cannot take any action. There is no proper follow-up of cases, there is also
denial and further postponed on the basis of reason, as per law the cases need to be addressed within a
week but are not received for years together and there seems to be no justice in view hence Miss Shoba
ended with a suggestion that we need to start a campaign to bring about clarity and improvement on
the implementation of the sexual harassment policy.
Sangita Rege
Miss Sangeeta the last speaker started her speech by saying “I Works with an organisation called CEHAT,
my large experience has been around domestic violence, sexual assault and while I has heard a lot of
reference today so I am thinking how we can reframe the larger issue of sexual violence because sexual
harassment is a term today that is feared of whereas sexual assault is very clearly defined in the laws”.
CEHAT had conducted a research on understanding violence from the base of a public hospital Dilasa
that reached out to women who faced all sorts of violence. While Dilasa has been going on for more
than a decade or 13 years work, we always wondered that what is it that stops professionals from
approaching, as you may know that it is a collaborative project FCGL and CEHAT initiative. We would
often get people calling at CEHAT office and would not approach the Dilasa centre in the public hospital
and that is something that always worked on our mind and it was the opportunity for our study.
So the objective is to understand 1. The types of violence women health workers faced both at the level
of the hospital and at their personal level. When I say women worker I mean women at all levels i.e
medical officers, doctors, nurses, ward workers admin staff etc. 2 To understand what are the current
avenue that currently women access to seek redress to the issue of sexual harassment that they are
facing and 3. What are the barriers that stopped women from accessing legal help at Dilasa services?
The strategy used was focused group discussion as we did not think that in depth interview would work
with this community. We had a discussion amongst different groups across different dimension.
So while defining sexual violence on sexual harassment as well as the challenges I have put these down
as experience of Senior Doctors as we understand that they sit with and understanding the bureaucracy.
Male doctors had more power than others and yet we see that senior woman doctors have come out as
the most vulnerable women, when we see the sexiest comments being passed by senior doctors against
women doctors, even this terminology where if a women is wearing mangal sutra means no entry, she is
not sexually available, all the mangtika is called as the No Entry Board.
Page 22
Women also said they get called on the pretext of discussing cases where there are case conference in
the OPD dept and male doctors are actually undressing in front of women so they are not clearly able to
clarify whether these are circumstances happening together or it was done intentionally, comments on
looks and appearances, several women doctor said in their registrar shift or in their internship it was
often the good looking girls were singled out for night duty and the casualty and then they were not
able to pinpoint from where this was coming from, whether it was for their competence or whether it
was about their looks, again female students are singled out for demonstration requiring examinations
of male sexual organs which is again being supervised by a male doctor where the hernias are being
purposely asked to be examined by a young women doctor where it is clear that the qualified male
doctors could do the demonstrations and she could give her viva , holding female hands for examination
the patients breast, when we look at lot of this dilemma doctors under training are still contemplating if
this is a matter of sexual harassment or is it really about my medical education and that is why the
verbalisation of these issues has taken them so many years.
Again you see colleagues coming drunk at work and deliberately passing comment on females. This
happens all the time in medical colleges. Then again the confusion for young doctors is am I training to
be a doctor or am I supposed to laugh at their joke or is it a sexist joke. And that confusion prevails
amongst them. Even after becoming doctors it is not that you do not face harassment by the patients
or their relatives . Purposely undressing in front of women doctors, pass comments on looks etc. also if
you look at relatives they thinks that a women doctor who is treating my patient may not be as
competent as a male doctor so this constant thing of harassing the female doctor is a conclusion that
she is not competent. These are similar so I will not repeat them. Similar to the doctors nurses too have
also reported against the largest content of harassments is from senior male doctors followed by labour
staff, agents and relatives.
In the focus group discussion many of them also spoke about witnessing this kind of harassment of
patients and one can understand that when women are walking into a hospital for any kind of health
care they are often going to be confused if the male doctor is asking to remove clothes is it a part of the
examination but it is the women colleague who is in the examination room who is actually aware that it
is not required . Just an analysis on how the gender operates in the medical system clearly a male peer,
males doctor are looked at as people with far more competence and it is diluting unfortunate to gender.
Competence is not looked at without gender. Colleagues and juniors often corner the spaces in the
hospital if you look at the casualty medical room, canteens in the hospitals you will always see mobs of
male doctor sitting together. So there is hardly any space for women doctors. Also another point is that
women doctors work in isolation, it’s not that groups of nurses, groups of aaya bai where you eventually
have a group and work together. Doctors have these on double duties and these stray duties and are left
working alone that is why they are all the more vulnerable. So what are some of the barriers that really
women spoke about accessing the formal systems, many of them fear that they will be blamed, they are
not sure if it falls under sexual harassment so many of the women doctor actually said that this was the
first time they were actually talking about their graduate or post graduate experiences or work
experiences, they had just dealt with it, this is a part and parcel of the medical education, so I have to
live with it as I want my degree at the end of the day. I don’t want this person to harass me at the time
Page 23
of my viva and getting my degree, again the entire thing is that there is actual sexual harassment in the
hospital.
I myself when working at Baba hospital attended the training program. This challenge is of ensuring that
health professional in every system have awareness on what constitutes this committee, what are the
kinds of complains that I can take to this committee, unfortunately there are no spaces accept the union
for nurses, labour staff and women doctors to speak out whether it is about violence, about over work.
So what are the issues one take to the sexual harassment committee there is a confusion, probably a
need to have a forum for women doctors may be able to voice out their concerns and then on deriving
on wherever this qualify for sexual harassment or overwork or qualifies as violence. So these are really
some of the recommendations that have come from women health workers. It’s about them, to
understand what is it that constitutes sexual harassments? Also where do they go? and the kind of
information they are sharing should not be leaked out.”
Discussion
Sonal Shukla thanked all the speakers and opened the session for questions in which a person asked “
Do NGO’s have a committee” to which Sonal added the quote from an EPW article in which
Radhakumar said “Who will organise the organisors.” Miss Shahida had a query about what kind of
complains were received upon which Miss Shukla replied that there is a variety in the complaints such as
Students vs Students, Teachers vs Students. Parents vs Teachers etc. and all the complaints are being
addressed by the committee. Miss Anagaha added that a teacher had launched a complaint of sexual
harassment on her students for taking a picture when she was writing on the board and uploading the
same on face book and there were lots of comments passed on the picture.
She also brought to the notice that with the improvement in technology evidence is also changing, so in
many cases she has seen that people are saving conversation on whats app, people are saving chats, in
many cases people are doing voice recording, so for the committee there are not acceptable as it cannot
be said for sure that it is his voice, people are gone to the extent of there is saying we will do forensic
testing to check whether it was his voice now we need to understand that it was an internal enquiry and
we do not need to get into forensic testing, but this different kind of evidence and proof that are
gathered unlike those through emails so we need to be prepared for those kinds of challenges. Vibhuti
added that sexual harassments on patients were done by RMO, ward boy, and labour staff and they too
should be included in the law. There is no awareness or training provided to them, training was provided
to Security guards, officers as there are supposed to protect others and the session ended on the note
that the Women should be a chairperson of the committee.
Page 24
TECHNICAL SESSION 3
Grievance Redressal System in Educational Institutions
Learning from the existing bodies of knowledge and their proactive steps
Five speakers have been invited to express their views in this session and they are Dr. Sneha Palnitkar,
Smt. Pushpatai Bhave, Smt. Nandita Gandhi, Dr. (Sr.) Ananda Amritmahal, Principal of Sophia College in
Mumbai, Dr. Shahida Murtaza and Smt. Lalitha Dhara.
Dr. Sneha Palnitkar
Dr. Sneha Palnitkar, is the Director Regional Centers for Urban and Environmental Studies (RCUES) with
All India Institute of local self-government (ALLLSG). This is the nodal resource center for Ministry of
Urban Development, Govt. of India.
She has mainly shared information regarding work, activities undertaken by them for women
development in local self-government and also initiatives taken by her for making her institution more
women friendly . We do the training for elected representatives. The topic is redressal system in
educational institutions. If I take it my own institution, then we have more women than men working in
my institution. So naturally we women are in quite dictating position within our institution on
management side. I am head of an institution, so any grievances, issues that arises have been tackled by
me only. Many may know that we have women friendly atmosphere in our organization. We have made
it as women friendly atmosphere. When you look sexual harassment, women's perspective and men's
perspective are different. I have seen within institution at lower line, apart from sexual harassment
there is also experienced sort of mental harassment; it may be from women to women, men to women
and in other way also. I also deal such issues at workplace. We have informal channel within our
institution. We are the big institution, 88 centers across the country, we have huge staff, so we have
develop a kind of mechanism to make women friendly environment within institution. This is about our
in house institution arrangement.
Apart from that, our mandate is to work with urban local bodies. We are practically working with every
state government of India. My self was part of process of introducing the 73rd and 74th constitutional
Amendments, mainly on women reservation provisions within constitutional Amendments. I worked
with Ministry particularly on draft of these provisions. Currently when 50 % reservation for women
introduced in lower tire of governance , I was witness to it. Basically 50% reservation in local bodies
seems as big number of women represent, so there is an opportunity to push women centric agenda at
local level government . We have experiment it, using strength of elected representatives we have
pushed the law "Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT), 2001" against Sex
selection. While doing so many from local representatives were saying that this was not their subject,
not their mandate, but we convinced them and make it successful. At least we could start this at local
self-government. Nobody thought on such subjects, everyone thought about big buildings, bridges,
Page 25
infrastructure, but no one willing to touch such topics. I remembered that we literally pushed this
agenda in all meetings with councilors, meeting with mayors. Also not with only women councilors,
includes all. This is not the agenda only for women, so it should be delegated to all elected
representatives. We went from city to city, covered 40 cities - Municipal Corporation and 14 A - class
municipal councils within the duration of one year program. Another initiative that we took with Pune
Municipal corporation, it was the first time, to "create gender friendly city". Basically no one could spell
out about what is gender friendly city. Then we have decided to start with dissect gender budgeting, in
that we look at budget of the city and how would be the certain portion of city budget used for
creating safer city for women. For this we also several times ask Dr. Vibhuti Patel as she is expert in this
area and get her guidance. We also have lobbied with local government and pushed this agenda. As you
may be aware that in local self-government budget, 5% of revenue budget is marked for women and
development but nowhere it was used. In each municipal body, crores of rupees are lying with them
unutilized; as no one knows about it and then it was diverted to next year for any other purpose. Thus
clear agenda for utilization of those fund for women and development is needed.
Pune Municipal corporation was the first one who initiate such agenda. One who is member of
Rajyasabha and earlier Mayor of Pune Municipal corporation, came forward for pushing this Agenda.
The commissioner also agreed for this. All municipal corporations are Commissioner oriented bodies,
commissioner says then everybody agrees. Here we convinced the commissioner , he also supported
everything. We took MDG goals, UNDP parameters and compared those to Municipal Corporation.
Another issue we took is that local bodies' women representatives need to be oriented. We need their
support to push any women related agenda at city level. It is true that all are not proactive and well
informed but at least 10 % are with you. And it is good number to push any agenda at your city level.
Then we decided to take up agenda of women and sanitation as well as women and transportation. In
that we focused all vulnerable groups in slums as well as women professionals like women working in IT
sectors. The idea was to create infrastructure for them for safe city.
Another important aspect is crime and women, basically this subject is not purview of municipal
government but lies in different department. But we took it. We have prepared a road map. Another
important aspect is pushing the agenda of good governance through women representative. In Mumbai
corporation 84 women councilors are there, all are not gender sensitive, but if few of them are gender
sensitive, then they can make changes in the situation. What I have shared here is different from today's
topic. I am coming from different background. But I feel that these points are very relevant for making
urban policies and urban development subject.
Page 26
(L-R) Dr. Nandita Gandhi, Lalitha Dhara, Dr. Shahida Murtaza, Sneha Palnitkar, Prof. Pushpa Bhave and Dr.
Trupti Shah
Prof. Pushpa Bhave
We all know that it is very difficult to talk about educational institutions in this regard. To begin with, a
part of Vishakha Judgment, educational Institutions are supposed to set their mindset, but if we have
looked back 10 years, not much happened. If we look at last ten years, we see college after college
discontinued the celebrations in the colleges because it became very difficult for them to control the
crowd, very difficult to control the harassment. It was more so in Jilha places, we seen an atmosphere of
fear. I was part of Vishakha Judgment Autobiography right from the first consultation held in Hyderabad
with human rights Department. And there we were just trying to see how Vishakha guidelines can be
used , we all were in shock with Bhavari Devi incidence and we were looking for new guidelines and
policy . Now we have been come a long way. I have been a part of many college committees.
Before that I want to share that I do not like this women development business because that is very
patriarchal. There are so many words, principles saying that harassment business is very negative but
women development seeing it very positive. There were many people who I am not exaggerating,
arranged mehandi exhibition under women development. I am not going in detail but we are not ready
to accept the other side of this. Many colleges including Mumbai University, also SNDT University, they
did not have in the beginning , NGO member on their committees. Again this is a sign of patriarchal
attitude not the things letting go outside. I have been member of many prestigious institutions'
Page 27
committee. They have never sent me a letter about what was the end results in cases. So I do not know
what happened at the end , there were many complicated cases. As I mentioned in the beginning, for
people like us it is very difficult to sit on the committees and see false complaints coming before us as it
is happening recently. It is very painfaul to confront the case and comes to the conclusion of false
allegations. It comes through because of inevitable career competitions. It became very painful as you
said to girl that you are lying.
In the morning we are talking about evidence, how does one really conduct the inquiry, one has to use
one's commonsense. We are not lawyers. True, but one has to use their commonsense, I do not name
the institute, in one case she is saying that she is repeatedly invited her staff member in block and these
things happened etc... So I innocently asked her could you describe the lay out of the quarters, what
was geography of that flat and she could not tell about it. I said thank you. The Principal understood,
though he had believed her since she was crying so much. I stopped him and said you cannot go by such
things. Even though there may be false complaints but there are many true complaints which are not
reported and we can't really give justice. So we do not discuss much on that side. Talking about
committees and working of committees in educational institutions, rather I would like to talk about
atmosphere in the institutions. In the recent past, in such cases, at least 50% of culprits are under aged.
They are minors. To me this is very serious thing have to tackle. I do not know what is happening but
minors are indulging in cruelty, rapes, harassment and cyber-crimes. So especially in educational
institutions we have to deal with this rather than redressal complexities.
I was talking to some students and one of them suddenly gathered his courage and asked me, his
question was very pertinent. He said that we supposed to get our degrees, formulate our career, then
look for good job and settle down in life, by that time we are in age of thirty. And now we are conscious
of our sex activities at around may be thirteen and fourteen, so we account from 13-14 to 30. Now this
is very difficult question to answer. But I went around the students and talked to them. That relation is
not about bodily relationship. It is mind-body relationship. But these kids, most of them carrying blue
films on their mobiles, I am not exaggerating. So when we are discussing and watching Nirbhaya case, a
very young boy who was seeing it on TV asked me that aunty don't you think that you are making too
much of it. I was really shocked and asked him what do you mean by that? He said I have a feeling that
the girl may have slept with many boys. I replied that where did you carry such impression. He said yes,
on my mobile there is a blue film which shows this.
If such impressions are carried by the students then our job becomes more complex. In India we always
said that it is western culture but it is not the western culture but it is lack of culture in educational
institutions. Sorry to say this but it is the truth. We have to strive hard in educational institutions to
impart cultural values rather than career competitions. Thank you.
Smt. Nandita Gandhi
I am talking about Stree -net, that Akshara offers as a course for educating oneself on gender issues. We
also offer other courses, on sexual harassment and Women Development Committees- WDC. We have
totally agreed that WDC word is problematic. But at present there will be no other words to convey its
true meaning so only option to use this word at present. Now I am talking about course for that you
Page 28
have to log on to homepage, it is protective site for that you need to put password. It is technically an
online course which has been put up by open source software called moodle. Why we choose this open
source software. It is just that we can't afford non-open source software. They run into lakhs. And
mainly large university pay and get this things like black board and other paid variety. Even I found that
large institutes like TISS also used software like moodle.
So why did we decide to do something like this online ? Akshara believes in spreading as much gender
consciousness in different ways as possible. So we have interactive workshops , lectures, some in called
mela format. And ten years ago when internet became popular we thought why not use internet for
such things. Now it has become our part of life. And online education has become big business. In fact a
lot of people are offering it and lot of people are offering it totally free. So there are varieties, you can
see both the varieties, paid as well as unpaid variety. Why is it so popular? One is if you do not want to
travel. In a city like Mumbai, you do not want to travel. You can log on at any place like at your work
place or in lunch hour or when you are resting at home. It has become extremely convenient. Mostly
everybody has computers at home.
Second thing is that it is not so intensive because it is online and does not have all sorts of teachers
question- answers. On the flip side it presumes that you have knowledge about internet. And strangely I
found that even now there are people who joined our course and we have to teach them how to do
copy paste , open it, click etc. But still people are ok if it is online and they are willing to do it. Our first
batch was all of activists in all over the country. Another was Special Cell people. We found that People
from outside Mumbai were keen to do this. Next group is of students includes college students also IAS
officers they are also students before they become IAS officer.
The college students response are fantastic, really pleasure to work with them. This is because they are
very keen, they give you additional information, they are always online. They became like our joint
partnership. They are giving you advice and you are giving them advice. They formed a group and
sharing with each other. The last group was teacher. Teachers like doctors they make worst patients. So
they make worst students. Now we have two sets of teachers, one from Mumbai University and
another from SNDT teachers. The content varies from violence from sexual harassment and other. What
is success rate? It is pretty good, not much drop outs, they finished the course, they get certificates.
What do you mean by drawbacks, drawbacks means you can't really do not know you as a student,
because this is only a face and email. So I do not have that personal connect with you. Yah that is
inevitable when you are online. Another drawback is that there is no evaluation mechanism to
understand how much you have understood and retained. So this is all about this course.
Dr. Ananda Amritmahal
Firstly everyone knows that my college is a women's college, and we have WDC as it is mandate given by
Mumbai University. In fact being a women college we are for women development. We have women
grievance redressal cell which is a women development cell and main idea is that it is available for any
kind of grievances. As Pushapji mentioned about it seems to be stupid concept in some way. In some
ways it makes some sense as it makes efforts at least however it is hampered by patriarchal language,
Page 29
but it is an effort to try and create some degree of gender sensitivity in educational institutions. Being a
women’s college our main purpose is to women’s empowerment.
What we have been trying to do over the years is raising awareness mainly on issues addressing women
in particular. Last 30 years we have been taken up any theme for a year like women and health , women
and environment , women and governance and social action and so on . Sometimes few themes have
been taken up for 2 or 3 years. It works quite well and every department should fix their theme
according to main theme decided and plan activities, curriculum, all are around that them .
Another point that I want to make is the tendency in our country is very much that this problem has
been imported from west. Some years ago I was invited in some program on gender sensitization, there
we were talking about sexual harassment. Someone mentioned that this was not an Indian problem in
the past, is it so? Sexual Harassment of Sairandhree at work place was not an example of sexual
harassment at work place. We often heard that this problem was not in the past. Such incidence are
growing now days. But this is not the situation. It has happened in the past but no one was talking about
it. Another important point is that such incidents are reactions to women coming out or moving in front
in many fields. In the rape case that happened in Shakti Mill compound , a girl has been raped in the
evening in between 5.45 to 6.00, which is close to railway line. I am caring for my children so what do I
have to say to my children that stay at home, do not go outside. What about women from vulnerable
group? We have to go outside on our own risk is it so… this is a dilemma.
We should educate girls what are those legal rights. There are committees, they have been potential to
be used thus we have to maximize their potential.
Dr. Shahida Murtaza
Here I want to share various types of cases that I have dealt in the institution and what type of problem
we face and what needs to be done particularly when I belong to an institute where 90% students are
Muslims. And quite a few belong to Mullah category.
It was really very difficult for us to form a sexual harassment committee in the institutes initiated by VC.
It so happened that in the morning we have constituted the sexual harassment committee and informed
all centres and the same day in the evening we received one fax which was a complaint of sexual
harassment. The P.A. to assistant registrar calls me a side and asked I do not want to spell the name of
committee and why do we require it ? It is so embarrassing to have such a committee in our institutions.
I am a part of that committee. Basically I am treated as a modern and outgoing person in the community
where all women are in parda. I was the first Chairman of this committee. In first case I travelled to
Shreenagar with my colleague who is from reserved category. I remember this case has very positive
impact in the institution. It happened due to support from VC.
What we have recommended , he has implemented 100%. He told that no further inquiry required, give
final judgment in cases. We have received 8 to 10 cases within span of 10 to 12 months. And the last
cast was received that was Mulla. There were two Mullas ,who were objecting to a girl to take part in
15th August and 26th January ceremony, objecting to sing a song in these function. They threatened
Page 30
that if you do not listen we will complaint to your father , you are coming for your education do that and
get lost. They were pressurisng her repeatedly and also started misbehaving like touching her fingers
while she is giving glass of water. In another case there is one teaching staff from mulla community, he
is teaching in the computer class, once he told one girl that he show her online shopping, and showed
pictures of girls on beaches in scanty dresses. That young girl runs out of that class. She came to me
and told me about this incidence. I asked her will she see this through till the end because her father is
also Mulla, there are always religious pressure on them. But she agreed and wrote a complaint to us.
Almost 10 to 12 sessions of inquiry have been conducted. This case took 8 months. Someone
mentioned that it should be inquired within 90 days. But it depends upon nature of problem. Finally
we took a decision to transfer him in a department where he will not be much in contact with women.
He was put in engineering department where there is no single women, and he faced a cut from his
arrears also. In the last meeting when I left I observed that this person is following me. When I stopped
him, he asked me about the result of case and also informed that he already went to the complainant girl's home and talked to her father. I informed that his daughter is pregnant I have tested medically.
She has two boyfriends. He put pressure on committee through media, publishing nonsense about us in
news papers, agitation by them. Last 6 months we are facing all those deterrence in this case.
UGC formed task force committees after Nirbhaya Case and they have visited campuses. They took stock
of situation what we have done and held discussions with the students. They also gave time to those
girls who want to talk with them privately. Confidentiality is maintained.
In our committee we add gender it just not Committee against sexual harassment. Added gender as we
insist gender discrimination is part of it. We have attained
4 cases purely based on gender
discrimination. Few argued that why you have added gender discrimination as it is only for sexual
harassment at work place. This is also one of my questions to open forum that Gender can be a part of
this committee?
I have realized that if you are strong then your committee also becomes stronger. Yes there are false
cases coming. My few suggestions, some may think that I am traditional but there should be some
efforts to restore moral fabrics. Academic institutions can play very pivotal role in creating balance
between sedition and modality, contents of syllabus never challenges, refreshing our societal values, to
suit current time. Counseling centers in all institutions should be mandatory , and these can also deal
with suicidal cases , which are growing in Hyderabad.
Smt. Lalitha Dhara
I have noted down few points from my experience with WDC since 7 years. One thing I have been
noticing that boys in college , my college is Ambedkar college where students are coming from socially
and economically backward class, boys do not have any idea what constitutes sexual harassment. Most
of the time they think that it is harmless fun. They are unable to perceive that it creating trouble for
girls. Like teasing , taking pictures, they do not see it as intimidation to the girl concerned. Second they
do not understand nuance of women’s consent.
Page 31
Any consent is treated as blanket consent for everything. If they are boyfriend and girlfriend, in such
case her consent is taken as given for everything that he likes and this consent from girl cannot be
revoked. Like go out with them , stay out with them late , they do not let her talk with other boys, he
tries to get her to dress in particular dresses, he tries to be over protective. In fact he is trying to exert
control over her with complete disregard to what she wants and what she does not want. Other things
that I have come across within staff , students as well as head of the institution they usually talk very
loosely behind her back. Like character assassination. I am wondering can we bring this into the purview
of committee. Also sexist jokes in front of her or behind her. This is also disturbing. I also observed that
some superior staff misused the committee to teach the lesson to mischievous students. Otherwise they
pressurized the chairperson of committee not to take action against a person who are close to them. We
faces both these kind of situations.
An external NGO member can be helpful in such situations where internal pressure is created. I also find
it very disturbing to hear men in and outside the campus using insulting words about a women’s
virginity. Something should be done against such insulting, swear words in public. In this context I have
to mention about one law that was formulated by Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj in 1921. I just read a few
line about it , he said that objectionable and obscene language are used during holi ,this is utterly
shameful, and such things should not be happening in these days of social progress. So the people were
warned against use of obscene language. He formulated a kind of ordinance to punish those who spoke
derogatory for women. Can we do this now ? I think boys should be taught to recognize sexual
harassment first and foremost. They have to respect views of women. They should be taught consent to
be obtained in every fresh encounter and that girls can stop them at any point. They should understand
that girls have minds and they can take decisions. There is need of gender sensitization , which should
be part of regular curriculum. All the students are 5 years with us, so one lecture a day in a week is
essential. This should be incorporated in the budget. Also have undertakings from students at the time
of admission that they do not harass any women in campus and respect human rights of women. Thank
you.
Discussion
1. The principle is member of all institutional committees, but chairperson of WDC committee has
all power to conduct the inquiry and business of committees. The committee has power to make
recommendations but power to take actions is with head of the institutions like principal.
2. Gender sensitization should be continuous process but not discrete process.
3.
Mostly observed that punishing the students is easier than punishing higher authority, superior
staff. More pressure on committee members within institutions. Here only NGO member can
play unbiased role as they are not pressurised by internal forces.
4. A genuine problem observed when we go out of Mumbai is that girls do not sign any petition or
file any case against sexual harassment. They fear that once they file a complaint their parents
will stop their education.
Page 32
5. What type of recommendations do sexual harassment committees give? Most of them are mild;
implication being they should not be doing it again. Most of the time make them apologise to
the girl, if it is a serious matter then apology in writing. Sometimes inviting his mother and talk
to her, also becomes an effective solution.
6. Suo moto action is also possible in these cases. It is not necessary that complaint should be
lodged by victim.
Dr. Trupti Shah stated in her concluding remarks that we are working in schools in Baroda where we
have experienced initially that girls are not coming ahead to give complaints in written. But once they
realize that we have support and we are approachable then they come in front. I also agree that Sexual
harassment should include gender discrimination. We are working with those schools where students
come from lower income group. Here before we talk about sexual harassment, they need to be taught
what is gender, what is gender equality.
Lastly I want to mention about false complaints, we are smart enough to find out false complaint. But at
the same time we should not get so cautious about false complaint that we overlook the fact that there
are many real complaints. Women are also part of the competitive world. Like men they also misuse
powers. So we should not take the burden of false complaint.
TECHNICAL SESSION 4
Recommendations
Challenges, way forward and vote of thanks
Shalini Sinha
She tried to summarize the entire days’ discussion into few broad areas as mentioned below
Issues in the new law
Capacity building at various levels
Building gender sensitivity
Page 33
(L-R) Ms. Shalini Sinha and Dr. Ruby Ojha
Some of the key recommendations and doubts raised are given below;
Effective inclusion of informal sector that covers domestic workers, rag pickers, etc
Clearly defining Role of the labour commissioners, local complaint committees and how can
they be strengthened
Clearly defining the role of NGOs member, their capacity building, how they can be included
Definition of women which also includes scope of covering and extending relief for transgender
who seek justice for SH
Compensation to the victim or complainant- how much by when and who decides and who pays
and how?
Onus of employer-what is his/her role, scrutiny of contracts
People who are handling institutions of SH redressal
Custodian situation involving SH
Inquiry committee role- full-fledged, preliminary inquiry committee, procedure of inquiry also
needs to be looked at
SH with jail authorities, construction workers, agriculture sector, defence & armed forces,
children are not covered in the Act
Page 34
Role of NCW, is useful when victim has been terminated of her employment, also when the
victim doesn’t trust the employer
Labour commissioner’s role and his capacity building, knowledge
Financial implications and personal implications are there, budget needs to be created for
capacity building for the inquiries to be held
Gender sensitization in curriculum and academia, training to all- role of academic institutions
needs to be elaborated
Rural and tribal areas whose jurisdiction should it come under and who will redress their issues
Support group that offers support to the aggrieved, also needs to cope with the trauma
Gender resource centers and desks required for sensitization and knowledge imparting as well
as documentation of the proceedings
Appropriate behavior guidelines is needed
Modules can be included which are already existing, handbook for SH
Media sensitization- code of confidentiality
Awareness in the judiciary at all levels and media, government, employer, employees is required
Perception of human dignity- needs to be clarified
Reporting mechanism and monitoring of the committees, watchdog role- manner in monitor
and what to monitor, parameters, institutionalize monitoring- watchdog committees
Monitoring the process and assuring results are two different things- results need to be
assessed
Sharing the process and encouraging transparency in the process
Compliance report- how many cases dealt?
Vote of Thanks by Dr. Ruby Ojha
D. Ojha stated that since career is at stake for women hence they refrain from complaining. In
Educational institutes, girls do not complain as they fear that their marks are at stake. Committees
required in NGOs and also to protect women in jails as also children. She emphasized that the Role of
families is key in the upbringing of the accused specially. People must know their limits and how they
should behave in public spaces. She concluded the national consultation by appreciating and
congratulating the participants and organizers for their sincere and diligent efforts.
Page 35

Report - Friedrich-Ebert

Transcription

Similar documents

Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace

Trojan™ Sexual Health Report Card

Page 12

Small-Talk can lead to Big Things

The Year in Review - Homegrown Communications

Lecture 7. Instinctual behavior - psychiatry

financial report

The Greater of Two Evils: Discovery Abuse in the Case

GLSEN Southern Maine - University of Southern Maine

310025kraCh01Lecture..