Forum addresses sexual abuse at office

GURGAON: The opening note of a sexual harassment workshop claimed that 'sexual harassment incidents are rampant across most workplaces in India'. The workshop, held on Friday, addressed how to best 'prevent, prohibit and redress' cases of sexual harassment at the workplace and saw around 50 corporate firms participating.
Organizers said that the event marked the beginning of a long-term awareness programme aimed at spreading the word on legal provisions available to victims of sexual harassment."The other objective is to see how the Sexual Harrassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act is being implemented at offices around the region," said a spokesperson of The First Wave, the consultancy firm which organized the event.
According to Pankaj Sharma, the firm's founder, similar workshops will be conducted for corporate players along the same format in the coming weeks across the region.
"We have identified 22 different areas that need to be changed within an organization for proper compliance with this Act. These start from the employee contracts all the way to appraisal documents, which need to be rewritten. The law demands that we revamp the old system, and introduce some new measures for better prevention of harassment cases at the workplace," he said.
Sharma said that the new Act also requires individual firms to organize in-house sensitization sessions for staff members to cultivate a better understanding of the issue.
"This Act spans far and wide across India and is an important one in the context of the implementation challenges it creates. Corporate firms and other organizations now need to gear up their internal systems to help develop a preventive and prohibitive atmosphere so that such cases don't occur at the workplace," said Amod Kanth, president of Prayas, an NGO.