Open Access Research Article
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE ENFORCEABILITY OF THE MEASURES PRESCRIBED UNDER THE POSH ACT IN INDIA BY: ANNANYA SINGHAL
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Article Details
AN
EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE
ENFORCEABILITY
OF THE MEASURES
PRESCRIBED
UNDER THE POSH ACT IN INDIA
AUTHORED BY:
ANNANYA SINGHAL
Student: 7th
Semester B.A.LL. B
Christ
Academy Institute of Law, Bengaluru, India
Phone No.
7351160001
E-Mail: annanyasinghal70gmial.com
CHAPTER I: ABSTRACT
The Prevention of Women from Sexual
Harassment Act, 2013 was enacted after the landmark judgment of Vishaka v.
State of Rajasthan. The Act was enacted to provide various guidelines for the
protection of women in the workplace. This paper tries to analyze the
admissibility of the measures prescribed under the Act by various
establishments. The establishments need to create a Committee for Complaints as
well as a committee for redressal. The
data will be collected through a questionnaire from various employees working
in a company or establishment to get an idea if they have such Committees
constituted for the protection of women. The research gives the answer about
the rate of enforceability of the measures that are prescribed by the POSH Act.
Keywords: Sexual
Harassment, Crime, Statistics, Guidelines
RELEVANCE
OF THE STUDY
The crime rate is not significantly
decreasing day to day even after the presence of various legislations for the
protection of women. In such cases, the enforceability of the legislation is
questioned. This paper tries to analyze the problems of the improper
enforceability of the POSH Act in India. It is important to understand the
problems for the reduction of crime against women in the workplace.
OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this research paper
are:
1. To analyze the measures prescribed by
the Act.
2. To understand the need and the
non-proper enforceability of the POSH Act in India.
RESEARCH
PROBLEM
The Act has been in force for a
considerable period but also there are various cases of Sexual Harassment
against women in the workplace. The paper tries to analyze the real reason for
the same as it is due to lack of knowledge among the employees or the employers
not adhering to the measures that are prescribed under the Act.
HYPOTHESIS
The cases of Sexual Harassment are
not reducing at a significant rate even after the enforceability of the POSH
Act due to the lack of knowledge of the protective measures by the employees as
well as due to the violation of the guidelines by the employers.
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
The research methodology used in this
research paper is Empirical. The data is collected through a Questionnaire in
the form of Google Form circulated across India.
RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
A. What are
the measures that are prescribed under the POSH Act?
B. What are
the reasons for the low reduction in the cases of sexual harassment even after
the enforceability of the POSH Act?
SAMPLE: The sample has been collected
from 50 people from different age group which include 62% women and 38% male.
CHAPTER II:
OVERVIEW OF THE POSH ACT
The United Nations Convention on the
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was
adopted by the UN General assembly in 1979 and which is ratified by India often
described as an international bill of human rights for women, it advocates for
the equality of women and men in terms of human rights and fundamental freedoms
in the political, economic, social, cultural, and civil spheres. It underlines
that discrimination and attacks on women’s dignity violate the principle of
equality of rights.[1]
Furthermore, no doubt there has been a steady increase in the rate of women's
employment in organized sectors in wide-ranging spheres and in many folds with
the advent of rapid industrialization, modernization, economic development, and
globalization. However, it has led to many evil practices such as physical and
mental harassment, gender discrimination, and more specifically sexual
harassment in the workplace.[2]
Sexual harassment is a superfluous annoyance of sexual requirements in the context
of the relationship of unequal power[3]
which includes physical contact, demand for sexual favours, showing colored
remarks pornography even verbal and non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.[4] By
sexual harassment, the women experience both physical and mental torture. The sexual
harassment has taken new shapes while women have entered in the workforce. The
colleagues and supervisors left no stone unturned to harass the women at the workplace
on a wide range and scale.[5]
Sexual harassment is widely considered emotionally impudent which creates an
atmosphere of unhealthy and less productive outcomes at the workplace In this
sense it has been recognized globally as the most frightening form of violence for
a very long. [6]Sexual
harassment in all its configurations is not easy to define. The Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission in the United States has developed a useful
definition of sexual harassment in the following way, “Unwelcome sexual
advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of
sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when:
1)
Submission
to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of
an individual's employment,
2)
Submission
to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for
employment decisions affecting such individual”.[7] No
doubt sexual harassment is such a cruel offense that every woman has
experienced it at some point of instance may be either in the office or on
their way to work. Every affected woman who has faced this crime is never let
to loud the incident in public if they do so they are subject to worst crimes
like assault, rape, acid attack etc. And surely these incidents led to the
devaluation of women and the domination of men.[8]
Sec 2(n) of the Act provides for the
definition of Sexual Harassment as:
a) Physical
contact and advances
b) Asking for
sexual favors
c) Showing
pornography
d) Sexual colored
remarks
e) Any other
unwelcome verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature
The Act provides various guidelines
that need to be performed by the Employers. The research paper focuses on the
enforceability of mainly 3 measures that are prescribed under the Act.
1) Legal
Awareness Programme
2) Internal
Complaints Committee
3) Workshops,
Mock Drills and Seminars
There is no significant reduction in
the cases of sexual harassment from the year 2013 i.e., since the inception of
the Act. The reports on the cases of sexual harassment are shown in the
following two graphs.
This paper tries to analyze the
reasons for the low enforcement of the provisions of the Act and the real
reason for the low reduction. The problem lies both from the side of the
Employer and the employees. The guidelines although binding on the employer sometimes
don’t they do not follow the guidelines or the measures prescribed under the
Act and the false and malicious complaints under Sec 14 of the Act make it
difficult to protect the women who seriously suffer sexual harassment.
The above two graphs show that there
is still a minority who don’t know about the presence of the Sexual Harassment
of Women (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 and there are
majority people where their co-workers are female employees.
There is a significant number of
people who states that they have witnessed sexual harassment case against
themselves or the persons around them.
CHAPTER
III: MEASURES UNDER THE ACT
1. Legal Awareness Programme
The employer under Sec. 19 of the Act
is bound to conduct legal awareness programs for the employees so that they are
aware of the consequences and the steps taken by them in case of any act
committed against them.
2. Policy
The employers are expected to frame a
policy describing the rules and regulations to protect female employees against
cases of sexual harassment. From the data collected it has been observed that
14% of the people from the sample don’t have the presence of the policy at
different workplaces.
3. Internal Complaints Committee
The Employers are bound to form an
Internal Complaints Committee under Sec.4 of the Act and a Local Complaints
Committee under Sec 6 of the Act. In the sample collected, it has been seen
that the majority have constituted the Complaints committee but there are
certain establishments as well where the committee is still not formed and 165
people are there who are not sure about the formation of the committee which
means even if the committee is constituted it is not working effectively.
4. Redressal Committee
The redressal Committee is the
committee that listens to the grievances of the persons and tries to find a
solution or give them advice on the path they should choose to protect themselves
and to punish the wrongdoers. In this case, the graph shows that 24% of workplaces
don’t have a redressal committee, and 20% state that there are chances of the
formation of such a committee but they are not sure on the same which again
questions the enforceability of the same.
CHAPTER 1V:
ANALYSIS and CONCLUSION
The situation above shows that there
is still a lack of enforceability of the binding nature of the measures that
are prescribed under the Act. It means that there are still various
establishments that fail to either create an Internal Complaints Committee or
conduct awareness programs and seminars. As seen through the data collected a
big role for the low reduction in the cases of sexual harassment is due to the
lack of the proper measures enforced by the employers.
It is also seen that the employees
are also not aware of their rights and lack awareness as seen above where it
was found that only 92% of the people were aware of the Act.
In conclusion, The Supreme Court
Guidelines issued in 1997 prohibiting sexual harassment at the workplace,
though legally binding on all employers, are not implemented in many
establishments and institutions. At present the statistics of reported crimes against
women are available with states and the central government. However, there is
no proper classification of the available data and there is no separate
category for sexual harassment at the workplace. Moreover, several cases of
sexual harassment of women at workplaces remain unreported to the police. As a
result, the available data do not reflect the realities in the field.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
Diksha
Munjal, “What is POSH Act and why has the Supreme Court flagged lapses in its
implementation”, 15 May 2023
·
Ishika,
“Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act”
·
Rouf
Ahmad Bhat and Prof. Dr. Anita Deshpande, “An Overview of Sexual Harassment of
Women at Workplace in India: An Analytical Study”, International Journal of
Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and Technology
[1] H. O. Agarwal, “International Law
and Human Rights” 15th (Ed.), Central Law Publication, Allahabad, 211002,
pp.494-496, 2008
[2] S. C. Srivastava, “Sexual
Harassment of Women at Workplace: Law and Policy”, Indian Journal of Industrial
Relations, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 364-390, 2004.
[3] C. MacKinnon, “Sexual Harassment
of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination”, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1979
[4] Section 2(n) of the Sexual
Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redresal) Act,
2013.
[5] G.S. Venumadhava, M. Tejashwini,
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[6] A. Thomas, “Incidents of Sexual
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[7] J. H. Joshi, J. Nachison, “Sexual
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[8] M. P. J. Pereira, E. J. Rodrigues,
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Article Information
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE ENFORCEABILITY OF THE MEASURES PRESCRIBED UNDER THE POSH ACT IN INDIA BY: ANNANYA SINGHAL
Authors: ANNANYA SINGHAL
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2023/11/21
- Issue 7
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
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