NO CENTRAL DATA POOL FOR WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT A CHALLENGE

Almost24y ears after india got its first guidelines to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace and eight years after the government enacted a law for it, there are few publicly available data on the efficiency of these mechanisms. In fact, the government maintains no centralised data relating to cases of harassment of women at workplaces, Parliament was told in July 2019. Also, 95% of India's women workers are employed in the informal sector and find it difficult to access legal mechanisms to report sexual harassment at workplace, experts say.

On february 17, a delhi court acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in a defamation lawsuit filed by former editor and sitting mp, mjak bar for accusing him of sexual harassment in 1993.

"The woman has a right to put her grievance at any platform of her choice and even after decades," said Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey in his judgment acquitting Ramani of defamation.

He also noted that at the time in 1993, she had no avenues to seek redressal for her alleged harassment, as India formulated the Vishaka Guidelines to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace, and provide women a forum to complain to, only in 1997. The guidelines evolved, 16 years later, into the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly known as the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act. However, eight years since its enactment, the government has still not published any information on how effectively this law and its committees function.