The current workplace environment is hardly tailored to help women who are sexually harassed. Several banks and other organisations don’t even have an Internal Complaints Committees (ICC) they can approach with their troubles. Says a president of an employees’ union, “When women employees at our bank come to me and complain about being sexually abused verbally by colleagues and seniors, we are not able to fight legally in the absence of the ICC. I have taken up this issue several times with the administrators and every time they tell me they will form the committee but nothing has come of it yet.”
Often women employees who face such harassment are reluctant to lodge an official complaint in the absence of such a committee, according to her. “If organisations had an ICC, it could act as a check against sexual harassment and women employees would feel free to come forward to lodge complaints with it as it would be expected to fight on their behalf in a systematic manner,” she reasons, adding that the situation is not confined to her bank alone, but is common to many other public sector institutions too. “One of my friends who works for another public sector bank has told me about female employees facing sexual harassment there as well, but they can do little about it in the absence of an ICC,” she regrets.
Even without an ICC some organisations have either transferred the woman who has been harassed or her tormentors to other branches as a way out of the problem. But this is hardly a solution, say those at the receiving end of verbal sexual abuse from their colleagues or superiors. But there could be hope now as the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010 passed by the Lok Sabha and awaiting the consent of the Rajya Sabha, has made it mandatory for both public and private sector units to set up an Internal Complaints Committee to ensure a safe environment for women at their workplaces.