Sini Fernandes

I had just finished making a project plan for the week to come and as it was a Saturday, I was happy to complete my half day and head back to my home. I was closing the back door of my office before I left and ‘bam!’ I jammed my right foot into the door, Painful? Yes! The pain rushed to my brain and I was numb for a moment but what made me more shocked and hurt was my male colleague’s reaction ‘oh! Oh! Such a cry baby! If you can’t handle this pain, how will handle your husband’s pain?’
Yes, we are talking about sexual harassment at workplace and above mentioned is one form of it. Our minds have been conditioned to relate sexuality mainly to physical form. But let’s loosen up from that conditioning and face the reality. Sexual harassment can be any kind of unwanted sexual advancement, be it physical, verbal, emotional, mental and don’t forget those lewd looks which make your entire being coil up with disgust.
Sexual harassment at workplace has to be voiced out because not only do the women have right to equality in the Indian constitution but they also have right of living with dignity. The word dignity itself equals to respect. Instead of contributing positively in a women’s life, there are people who are all set to degrade it.
‘Bhavaridevi’ does that name ring a bell? Bhavaridevi was a Rajasthan state government’s employee who was gang raped during the course of her work all because she was trying to prevent child marriage in a higher caste family. She did not get justice for a very long time and her case bought about the Vishakha guidelines against sexual harassment. A women’s organisation named Vishakha had filed public interest litigation against the state itself to seek justice. Sadly, the law against the sexual harassment at workplace was passed very recently i.e. in the year 2012. Imagine the amount of torments women had to go and without any law to support them till then.
How shall we deal with sexual harassment at workplace? As per the rule, there should be a committee appointed in each office to deal with such issues but how many offices can claim to have such committees? First thing that needs to be done is strict enforcement of such laws to safeguard women and create a safe environment for them to work.
Many times I have been sexually harassed in the bus while I was on the way to my office and many will be gladly surprised to know that this is also considered as sexual harassment at workplace. What really needs to happen is people having complete knowledge about all this and learning to speak about it. There should be awareness programs conducted through the government itself in every institution.
Lastly, the most important thing that needs to be changed is people’s mindset about women. They aren’t dolls fooling around into their workplace. Every women right from a maid to a HR manager has a right to her own personal space and sexuality and nobody has a right to violate that.

The writer is a social worker