[sacw] RIGHTS-INDIA: Sexual Harassment At Work Rampant Despite Laws

[Harsh Kapoor]

> Copyright 1999 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
> Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
>
> *** 16-May-99 ***
>
> Title: RIGHTS-INDIA: Sexual Harassment At Work Rampant Despite Laws
>
> By Ranjit Dev Raj
>
> NEW DELHI, May 16 (IPS) - Two years after the Supreme Court
> pronounced sexual harassment at work a violation of the right to
> life and liberty, Indian women are still quitting jobs rather
> than fighting unwelcome advances from their male bosses.
>
> On Friday, former Chief Justice J S Varma, the man who passed
> the landmark ruling, blamed social apathy for a situation in
> which women employees continue to be harassed with impunity,
> especially in the private sector.
>
> Varma was reacting to a controversy brewing after two teachers
> and the receptionist of a school run by the prestigious Delhi
> Public School (DPS) chain publicly accused its principal of
> harassing them into resignation.
>
> Earlier in the week, the three victims, encouraged by women's
> rights groups and the National Commission for Women (NCW), a
> statutory body made their charges at a press conference.
>
> ''He (the principal) followed me into the seminar room, closed
> the door and grabbed me,'' said Shirni Kaul, receptionist at the
> Faridabad suburban branch of the DPS which runs more than 60
> schools in and outside the capital.
>
> Kaul said the principal showed her a newspaper clipping of the
> Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair and said ''if they can do it
> why not us.''
>
> When am unimpressed Kaul resisted, the principal turned
> vindictive following a pattern he adopted with two other of his
> victims, both of them teachers at the school.
>
> All three said DPS management failed to respond to their
> complaints and instead the principal was allowed to make their
> working conditions so uncongenial that they were left with no
> choice but to resign.
>
> The fact that the school failed to set up a sexual harassment
> inquiry committee on receiving a complaint shows the scant
> respect for the Varma rulings said Naina Kapoor a lawyer and
> activist for the women's rights group SAKSHI.
>
> It was only after the victims approached the NCW and got it to
> interven that the DPS management deigned to institute a
> preliminary enquiry which found at least three clear cases of
> sexual harassment.
>
> ''There are grounds for further investigation,'' said Dr.
> Kamal Choudhury, senior member of the DPS board who led the
> inquiry said.
>
> But so far no action has been taken against the principal.
> Instead the matter rapidly gained political overtones especially
> because of the opposition Congress party's close association with
> the DPS chain.
>
> Said Justice Verma, ''I was distressed to learn from the media
> that the incident holds significance for the coming elections.''
> India is scheduled to elect a new government in elections
> stretched over September and October.
>
> Varma said it was pity that Indians cannot ''educate
> themselves to react to a crime on the basis of the nature of the
> offence rather than the political colour of the person
> involved.''
>
> ''After seeing the criminalisation of politics we are now
> looking at the politicisation of crime,'' said Varma often
> described as an activist judge in a distingusihed career which
> ended last year with his retirement.
>
> Verma said the fact that Parliament has been unable to bring
> in comprehensive legislation on the subject of sexual harassment
> at the work place was owing to the fact no one was really
> interested enough to pressurise politicians.
>
> Said Indira Jaisingh, veteran women's rights lawyer and social
> activist ''As things stand there is a law but no effective remedy
> for sexual harassment at the work place.''
>
> Women's rights activists, she admitted, have failed to lobby
> hard enough for legislation on the issue although the Supreme
> Court ruling was a good beginning.
>
> Jaisingh said there were many obstacles to justice for a woman
> who finds herself the victim of sexual harassment at work
> starting with the fact that most establishments are male-
> dominated.
>
> ''The structure of power is essentially patriarchal and loaded
> against women,'' Jaisingh, a veteran of several well-known
>
> women's rights battles in court, said.
>
> Jaisingh emphasised the ''vicarious responsibiity of the
> employer who too often stands behind the harasser and thus
> becomes as much guilty as the actual perpetrator.''
>
> In the DPS case, activists are demanding that the management
> headed by senior Congress party leader Salman Khurshid, be
> punished for its inaction.
>
> ''The principal should have been suspended so that he cannot
> continue to threaten or intimidate witnesses,'' said Jasjit
> Purewal, director of Interventions for Support Healing and
> Awareness (ISHA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).
>
> Varma said there was a need for greater awareness of the
> problem given that more women were entering the workforce in a
> background of general reluctance to approach the courts for
> justice because of delays and expense.
>
> Women in particular fear approaching the courts even for
> serious sexual crimes such as rapes because of the abysmally low
> record of convictions and because of damaging publicity.
>
> Said Alok Bhasin, vice-president of the Labour Law
> Association, the situation in India is aggravated by lack of
> education and a social tendency to blame the victims of sexual
> assaults for having brought the situation upon themselves.
>
> ''A large section of Indian society is yet to get used to the
> idea of the employed woman,'' Bhasin said.
>
> Said Jaisingh, herself a victim of sexual harassment, ''the
> greatest societal danger arising from the problem is that it
> serves as a serious impediment to the integration of women into
> the workforce.'' (END/IPS/rdr/99)
>
> Origin: Montevideo/RIGHTS-INDIA/
> ----
>
> [c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
> All rights reserved

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