GIVING A VOICE TO THE MANY WOMEN
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has broadly laid down provisions to prevent sexual harassment of women at work places.
As laid down in the Act, ‘workplace’ includes not only government organisations/offices but also private ventures. Section 2 (o) (ii) of the Act reads:
Any private sector organisation or venture, undertaking, enterprise, institution, establishment, society, trust, NGO, unit or service provider carrying on commercial, professional, vocational, educational, entertainment, industrial, health services or financial activities including production, supply, sale, distribution or service. I absolutely deny the allegations against the Tollywood film industry. I am working in this profession for the past 25 years but I was always treated like a princess. Whatever Sri Reddy has gone through it’s her personal experience that doesn’t mean everybody faces the same issues in the film industry. We have amazing laws to protect women but it always depends on the woman itself how she potrays her character. Nobody can force any women to do something against her wish. The Tollywood film industry doesn’t need any grievance cell because sexual harrassment is everywhere. We should just have a common platform where complaints can be filed. Earlier we had a redressal forum which we started in 2003 as I used to get a lot of complaints. The cell functioned till 2006 and was headed by actress Jayasudha. However once the cell was started not many came forward to file complaints and so we had to discontinue with the cell. However with this incident a redressal mechanism for Tollywood actresses will be formed in the Telugu film industry as per the guidelines. In the future if any budding actress faces such instances, they should say ‘NO’ and should immediately leave the place and lodge a complaint against the person. I think henceforth nobody will dare to do this because from now onwards we will be taking strict measures against women harrassment in the industry. This kind of an incident will not happen again until and unless both are willing to go ahead. The film industry will take strict measures to control sexual harrassment from now onwards.