Fearing stigma, many victims of sexual harassment quit jobs: Survey

The Mysuru chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) had jointly organised a workshop on ‘Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) of Women at Workplace’, here, recently.

Inaugurating the event, chairman of CII-Mysuru Arjun Ranga said, “It is unfortunate that our social ethos do not provide enough security to women. It is the biggest cultural failure in India. According to a recent survey on sexual harassment in India, which covered around 6,000 participants, only 45 victims came forward to speak about the issues. The survey revealed that about 30% of Indian workforce are facing the problem.”

He said, “However, the survey reveals that most of the victims of sexual harassment don’t even complain. Many quit the organisation. While some said they were looked down upon or discriminated by their co-workers for complaining, others say that their complaints are not followed up.”

Pointing out that the electronic media is a strong mode of communication, he described it as the biggest challenge. “The mode of electronic media is tricky. Messages and e-mails exchanged between two people within an organisation can be wrongly interpreted. Hence, it needs to be addressed as different from physical harm, because emotional trauma can hurt a person deeply. An organisation should address the matter in such a way that the victims come back with the same confidence into the mainstream and learn to deal with such issues in their own way,” said Arjun Ranga.

In his talk on ‘Overview of Legislation and Corporate Challenges’ advocate and management consultant S N Murthy, said, “From the bygone times, in most of the places in India, woman are treated as a curse. It is not just men in the family, even the women, who consider her girl child as an annoyance. Though the mindset has slightly changed with women allowed to be free and independent, restrictions on them continue. With more women entering workplaces, harassment has only increased with time, most of the times the owner of the firm will also be aware of the matter but wouldn’t take any step due to the fear of a decline in productivity at workplace,” he said.

In a talk on ‘Provisions of the Legislation’ by advocate and consultant S G Karuna said, “Sexual harassment at workplace is a key term, required to be understood in the legislation. The organisations and the respective committee members should be sensitised about pre and post complaint scenario. They should concentrate on details such as counselling of the victim.”

Stating that the cases of false complaints too are high these days, she said, in about 50 cases of sexual harassment she has handled, so far, about 3% are false complaints, which should be addressed seriously.