Workplace harassment Bill: More rough than the smooth

The proposed Bill, when enacted, will ensure protection for women at all work places, be it public or private.

The Bill proposes a definition of sexual harassment, which is as laid down by the supreme court in Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan (1997) case. Additionally, it recognises the promise or threat to a woman’s employment prospects or creation of hostile work environment as ‘sexual harassment’ at workplace and expressly seeks to prohibit such acts both in organised and unorganised sectors.

The Bill provides protection not only to women who are employed but also to any woman who enters the workplace as a client, customer, apprentice, daily wage worker or in an ad-hoc capacity. Students, research scholars in colleges/university and patients in hospitals have also been covered.

However, activists feel that all these years of polishing have failed to smooth the rough edges and several grey areas have escaped the attention of the policy makers.

They are vocal against the penal provisions dealing with the complainant if she fails to substantiate her allegations of sexual harassment or cannot provide adequate proof of discrimination.

“Cases where a woman might be a victim of sexually-coloured remark, physical contact by a male colleague, demand or request for sexual favours, any unwelcome verbal or non-verbal conduct, which falls under the definition of sexual harassment, it might not be possible for women to provide reasonable grounds or evidences for such complaints.

What steps would the complaints committee take in such cases?” asks activist and social scientist Ranjana Kumari.

Legal expert Indira Jaisingh feels that this single provision can defeat the whole objective of the law since power dynamics will be at work.

“What will happen if the boss or the supervisor or the team leader is at fault? Who will come out to speak against him?” Kumari asks.

Echoing the same view Madhu Kishwar says when a man is in a powerful position he can always influence the legal procedure by putting pressure on witnesses.

The Bill proposes setting up of an Internal Complaints Committee in every organisation, but the regulation has not been made mandatory for all. Organisations consisting of less than 10 members are asked to file their complaints to the local complaints committee which will be constituted by the designated officers at the district or sub-district level. How effective such committees will be and whether the women employees would have access to such bodies remains to be seen.

Feasibility

As part of the grievance-redressal mechanism mentioned in the Bill, every employer is required to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee. Since a large number of the establishments have less than 10 workers for whom it may not be feasible to set up such a committee, the Bill provides for setting up of Local Complaints Committee (LCC) to be constituted by the designated district officer at the district or sub-district levels, depending upon the need.

According to Women Power Connect, an organisation advocating gender equality and empowerment, the Bill should also include provisions for punishment in case of repeated offence by male workers. The Bill and its architects undermine the basic truth that sexual harassment is neither about sex nor gender, but about blatant display of power and refusal to accept women as equal members of the society.

Section 8 of the Bill provides for conciliation and settlement between the aggrieved woman and the respondent. In this case, the reconciliation procedures need to be well explained, or else the clause comes out like putting pressure on the aggrieved woman. In such cases, a woman might be forced to withdraw the case and the respondent may elude punishment without any inquiry being conducted against him, the activists argue.
Instead of having the provisions under Section 14, which state that “the action taken by the employer under the provisions of this Act shall not be published, communicated or made known to the public, press and media in any manner,” even under the Right To Information Act, the Bill should lay down extensive provisions for complainant and witness protection, they say.

The Bill states that one fourth of an employee’s salary should be paid as compensation to the aggrieved woman. It provides only for compensation but has not touched upon initiation of criminal proceedings. Such a case might encourage people to harass a woman sexually at the workplace and later pay up the compensation and start again with a clean sheet. The better off the person is, the easier it will be for him to repeat the crime and still escape from punishment. Thus, the Bill should also mention about notification of initiation of criminal proceedings by the employer/district officer against the respondent, the rights activists say.