Working women, students, and women from all walks of life, as well as men, regularly face sexual harassment, crude jokes, and unwelcome gestures at their workplaces or schools and colleges. Reporting sexual harassment is not easy, sometimes, due to the fear of unlawful termination, unnecessary work pressure, spoiling the team environment.
The Sexual Harassment of Women under the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act (hereinafter referred to as “Act”) was enacted in the year 2013 with threefold purposes:
1. Providing protection to women against sexual harassment at the workplace,
2. To prevent sexual harassment
3. To provide a redressal mechanism for complaints relating to sexual harassment at the workplace
Universities, colleges and institutes of higher education having a large presence of young men and women are highly vulnerable to incidents of sexual harassment. It is therefore necessary for academic institutes to make policies and take measures to protect women from sexual harassment.
There is a strong need to develop an appropriate perspective regarding various concerns related to the sexual harassment of women and other women’s issues in order to correctly implement the guidelines issued by the Honorable Supreme Court of us to ensure the protection of women at the workplace.
The Anti-sexual Harassment Committee of the School is established to prevent the commission of acts of sexual harassment and to provide procedures for the resolution, settlement, or prosecution of acts of sexual harassment through appropriate redressal mechanisms.