SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, June 29: As per a recent report released by the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives Trust (AALI), around 40 percent of women working in the informal (unorganised) sector have claimed to have experienced acts and behaviour at the workplace that amount to sexual harassment.
Notably, AALI surveyed organised and unorganised workplaces in Jharkhand over the implementation of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplaces (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2013 also known as the PoSH Act 2013 between 2019 and 2021. The association has now released the report of the same.
The organisation surveyed around 138 women, of which 63 revealed that they had faced sexual harassment in the workplace. It is also worth noting that out of these 63, 52 percent confirmed that they did not consider these to be ‘sexual harassment’. This goes to show the normalisation of sexual harassment in the workplace, where women may even come to expect it as a ‘part of the job’.
Moreover, of the 63 women, 29 did not inform or complain to anyone regarding the harassment. Reasons behind this include not knowing who to talk to, fear of consequences on them, fear of being marked difficult to work with, belief that the harasser was powerful, and the fear of not being believed.
On the other hand, the majority of the women that reported the incidents of sexual harassment approached informal systems. As a result, not a single respondent had filed a complaint under the PoSH Act, 2013. Interestingly, the women who continued working at the same workplace used strategies to cope with the harasser, most of which included staying around people and not travelling to or from work alone. Some even informed their friends, who in turn confronted the harasser and in some cases even threatened with police complaints.
Several also reported experiencing the ‘quid pro quo’ sexual harassment. This kind of harassment involves threats, misbehaviour, insulting the respondent, giving them difficult tasks knowingly, being overly critical of the respondent’s performance, and even holding back the respondent’s wages.
While surveying offices, the AALI team realised that around 60 percent of the women were unaware that they can take any form of legal action against sexual harassment in the workplace. Only 15 of the 138 respondents had some information regarding the PoSH Act, 2013, however, their knowledge was either incomplete or inaccurate.
The team further contacted the local and district administrations. Out of the 24 districts, only 14 informed the team of the internal and local committees formed. Here, only 10 out of the 14 districts have local committees under section 6 of the PoSH Act, 2013, and most were formed only recently, after the survey began in 2019. Here, the Ranchi district administration is yet to release information from the local committee, however, has claimed to have formed one.
Furthermore, the local committees formed in the said districts are highly inactive. The report has revealed that no complaints have been filed in any of the 10 local committees in each of the 10 districts. Women here have pointed out that the lack of law and mechanisms for filling complaints have been the major contributor to the imposed silence around sexual harassment at workplaces.
Even members of the said local committees have claimed that no meetings were held and that there is no support from the state to promote the law. Moreover, the internal committees have been formed at the DC office in only seven out of the 14 districts, and even they continue to remain inactive.
