Sexual Harassment: Plethora of agony of working women (Last Edition)

woman in purple shirt covering her face with her hand

Kaustav Ghosh

Conclusion and Suggestion:-Now we are here in the last edition and in the last like everyone we will conclude it with some suggestions. But what makes this edition different than others. In this edition our concentration only will be on the suggestion. In our childhood days I can remember the poem-“Miles to go before I sleep”. We have started the fight and will not stop till the goal is reached. In India just after the tragic Nirbhaya case in Criminal law (amendment) Act was passed in the year 2013. It amended those provisions of Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, Code of Criminal Procedure which dealt with sexual offences. On that same year a separate legislation was introduced to fight against sexual harassment and that is Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. It is only six years old. It is not tough to presume that this legislation needs to grow to become perfect. It is in nascent stage. I hope that those provisions contained herein will be amended time to time to meet the need of the time, though I always believe that no law is enough to ensure the welfare of people until or unless the people itself knows and aware of its right available to itself. To get rid of any problem we need hit the root of that problem.

In India we have been taught that woman is subordinate to man. Woman should not raise its voice against husband and in-laws; they prefer to kept quite then to raise voice against unjust and evil. They have been taught that a woman should concentrate only on procuring children and raise a family. They have been taught that all women will be safe if they remain busy in household matters. Character of child started to take it s shape by watching the behaviour of its parents and family. Specially a baby boy if started watching undue, disrespectful dominance  of his father over his mother from his childhood; he will think dominance over female is quite natural along with hitting, use of filthy language as he saw it while growing up. It will take this behaviour as very common and normal. In future this baby boy will continue this bad tradition and by thus vicious circle will be continued. If we need to protect our future generation from this evil we have to start it now.

From pre-primary we need to taught all the child that woman is not a material object. Woman and man complete and complement each other. No one is either superior or inferior to each other. By paying respect to womanhood we can really convey our respect towards our mother and motherland. That it is also a fact that not always men are liable or responsible. There is a proverb that the women are the enemy of women. It has become a cult proverb because when a women in distress, when a women needs help no women will be there for her but will be available for putting blame on her. Be it for harassment, misfortune. In fact they need just an excuse for blame game. This is not an exception scenario in workplaces. This is why there is rise of domestic violence. It all starts in a family, as they say ‘charity begins at home. If we can start it in our family, then no law will be needed to tackle this issue. It is the people who made a law or system good and it is the same people who made it bad by ignoring, exploiting. Still it has been believed by many person irrespective of its sex that women are only good at procuring child, cooking, home making. But for me they are embodiment of goddess Durga, they can do 10 works at a time. Simple example of multitasker is our mother.

If there is a separate court which will deal with women related issues that will be great, because there are already millions of cases pending. I believe in a civilized society more importance should be given to senior citizen, child and women. We have separate court for offences against child, but no separate court for women and senior citizen. I think that is need of the hour. Last but not the least “Unless you uplift the women, man cannot rise in the eyes of divine”, because “there is no chance of welfare of the world unless the condition of the women is improved. It is not possible for a bird to fly with one wing.”

(This paper was presented at the 2nd International Virtual Conference on “Women’s World: Epitome of Victimisation and Emancipation” organized by Vidhi Aagaz, International Journal of Law Management and Humanities ,International Journal of Legal Science and Innovation and Centre for Constitutional Research and Development on August, 2019.)

Leave a Reply

%d