Rajeev Gowda bats for including gender bias in Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act

Amid a decrease in the number of women in workforce and increasing complaints of their harassment, Congress MP Rajeev Gowda on Friday urged the government to widen the scope of the existing law aimed at preventing sexual harassment at workplace to include gender bias.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha, the MP from Karnataka said the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (PoSH) Act passed by Parliament in 2013 does not cover a range of harassments that women are subjected to in the workplace.

"I rise to bring to the attention of the Government the urgent need to widen the scope of the PoSH Act to include gender bias...This can take many, many forms. It can take the form of humiliation, it can take the form of exclusion from important tasks, it can take the form of removal of responsibilities and withholding of resources," he said.

"There are numerous ways in which women are harassed at the workplace and their promotion is prevented. We have all heard of the glass ceiling. That is also an example of an impact of harassment of a particular kind," he said.

Asking how one could find a remedy to this "particular challenge that is faced by large numbers of women", he suggested that one way to do is to ensure that there are redressal mechanisms within companies.

However, he said, there is no standard method by which companies go ahead and address this challenge of harassment of women and because of inconsistencies, there is a problem for women to be able to get proper justice.

"This can get much, much worse. In many multi-national corporations (MNCs), the cases are heard and passed on to foreign committees and there is no response within the country to the challenges faced by women," he said.

He also referred to false accusations, whisper campaigns and subtle rumours about women being passed on to other companies saying this is a troublesome person and do not hire her.

Gowda referred to the Economic Survey, which pointing out that the female labour force participation has already dropped from 33% in 2011-12 to 25.3% in 2017-18 and said that the harassment women face could be one reason for the decrease in their presence in work spaces.

He also batted for widening the jurisdiction of internal complaints committee and to ensure that there is an NGO member and, at least and half the members are women there in such panels.

In MNCs, he said, the internal committees must include members from the Indian branch of the company.