LAWS
: Anatomy of sexual harassment at the workplace
Business and pleasure might not be a traditional mix, but when they do, sometimes the resulting cocktail is quite poisonous. Gender roles at workplaces are no longer distanced by glass ceilings, and with men and women working longer hours together, interactions are obviously not just limited to shop talk. You think it’s cool to call her ‘babe’ or mail a ‘really funny’ (but ‘adult’) joke thinking you’re backslapping buddies, but the other party might see it as ‘indecent’. You think taking your juniors for dinner is healthy, but it might be read as coercing subordinates who fear a bad work review. You might be left wondering what went wrong when the employee you were only looking out for alleges undue advances.
Or, as shown in Aitraaz or the promos of the upcoming Inkaar, an office affair gone sour can get really ugly — what was once romantic can be easily proved to be otherwise. Of course, there’s always the predatory boss who’ll boost your career ladder in return for ‘intimacy’, or make work hell for you if you refuse. A Reuters/Ipsos poll of 12,000 people in 24 countries, released days after HP CEO Mark Hurd’s resignation in 2010, had said that one in 10 workers had been pestered for sex by a senior. Accusations of sexual harassment have claimed some really big heads in the recent past. So, it might pay to watch what you say or do to avoid the same fate.
Corporates today are taking up the issue seriously, with some companies even setting up committees within their setup to look into such matters.
DEFINITION
As per the Supreme Court of India’s Vishakha Guidelines, sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexually determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as:
Physical contact
Demand or request for sexual favours
Sexually coloured remarks
Showing pornography
Any other physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.
PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS
Psychologist Dr Seema Hingoranny says, it can increase stress, add to fear of harassment repetition and being ostracised, guilt, low morale and decreased work performance as a result of defamation of character.
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
It’s probably the only law in the country that’s considered to be skewed in favour of women. And it’s relatively new. Till before September 2012, the legal redressal of sexual harassment cases was based on the recommendations of the Supreme Court in the Vishakha Vs State of Rajasthan case in 1997. Finally, in September last year, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2012 was enacted, and while it may bring some relief to women, the law very clearly does not include sexual harassment of men at the workplace (the Act defines the two parties as ‘aggrieved woman’ and ‘respondent’).
The only provision that safeguards men from its misuse against them is Section 14, which says that if the allegations are found to be “malicious” or if the “aggrieved woman or any other person making the complaint has made the complaint knowing it to be false”, action can be taken against the complainant. This, despite the fact that there are Indian studies to prove that men are as vulnerable to sexual harassment as women. In most parts of the world, 35 countries to be precise, the law against sexual harassment at the workplace is a gender neutral law.
However, legal experts are of the opinion that this law is only as prone to misuse as any other. “Why just women, a man can also sexually harass another man at work, and in the current social context, that’s a more real possibility,” says lawyer Uday Bajaj, and adds, “Any law where you reverse the burden of proof can be misused. However, in this particular instance, the percentage of women reporting sexual harassment is so low, that there’s very little scope for it to be misused.”
Women activists too have found the law lacking. For one, they’ve objected to Section 14, saying it can be used against women whose charges go unproven, and can therefore deter them from making a complaint in the first place. Also, while domestic workers come within the ambit of the Act, women in the armed forces — where cases of sexual harassment are rampant and go unreported — do not.
As for the punishment, the law puts the onus of punishing the offender on the employer by, for instance, deducting a compensation amount from his salary or asking him to quit the job, depending on the findings of the Internal Complaints Committee constituted for the purpose of hearing the case. In case the employer does not act against the guilty, he can be fined upto 50,000.
Aarushi Nigam & Ismat Tahseen With inputs from Devanshi Seth and Kashika Saxena
It’s probably the only law in the country that’s considered to be skewed in favour of women. And it’s relatively new. Till before September 2012, the legal redressal of sexual harassment cases was based on the recommendations of the Supreme Court in the Vishakha Vs State of Rajasthan case in 1997. Finally, in September last year, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2012 was enacted, and while it may bring some relief to women, the law very clearly does not include sexual harassment of men at the workplace (the Act defines the two parties as ‘aggrieved woman’ and ‘respondent’).
The only provision that safeguards men from its misuse against them is Section 14, which says that if the allegations are found to be “malicious” or if the “aggrieved woman or any other person making the complaint has made the complaint knowing it to be false”, action can be taken against the complainant. This, despite the fact that there are Indian studies to prove that men are as vulnerable to sexual harassment as women. In most parts of the world, 35 countries to be precise, the law against sexual harassment at the workplace is a gender neutral law.
However, legal experts are of the opinion that this law is only as prone to misuse as any other. “Why just women, a man can also sexually harass another man at work, and in the current social context, that’s a more real possibility,” says lawyer Uday Bajaj, and adds, “Any law where you reverse the burden of proof can be misused. However, in this particular instance, the percentage of women reporting sexual harassment is so low, that there’s very little scope for it to be misused.”
Women activists too have found the law lacking. For one, they’ve objected to Section 14, saying it can be used against women whose charges go unproven, and can therefore deter them from making a complaint in the first place. Also, while domestic workers come within the ambit of the Act, women in the armed forces — where cases of sexual harassment are rampant and go unreported — do not.
As for the punishment, the law puts the onus of punishing the offender on the employer by, for instance, deducting a compensation amount from his salary or asking him to quit the job, depending on the findings of the Internal Complaints Committee constituted for the purpose of hearing the case. In case the employer does not act against the guilty, he can be fined upto 50,000.
Aarushi Nigam & Ismat Tahseen With inputs from Devanshi Seth and Kashika Saxena
BT130116
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