Priya is the secretary to the CEO. She is a fun loving, independent girl who is making a definite mark for herself in this tough competitive corporate world. By virtue of her role, people across levels and functions interact with her daily. She enjoys these interactions since it helps her maintain good relations with them.
Two of the senior functional heads start spending a lot more time with her. She is invited to their functional parties and off-site events. She attends them, considering its part of the job and someone from the CEO’s office should attend.
She is called in their cabins to discuss some official matters, which is followed by some light banter. Over the course of time, she starts getting WhatsApp forward messages from them. As is courtesy, she replies to them with smileys and sometimes forwards of her own.
The tone of the jokes starts becoming more personal and uncomfortable. She doesn’t really know how to react since she is at friendly terms with them. She doesn’t want to offend them by saying she doesn’t like such forwards.
During one of the team parties, while dancing, one of the functional heads puts his arms around her waist. She shows her discomfort by walking away to the other group of dancers.
Such and many more uncomfortable gestures begin to happen. Priya is a young girl, who has just started her corporate career. She doesn’t want to get into the wrong side of management. She aspires to ride the corporate ladder, but only basis merit and her hard work.
What should she do?
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is a legislative act in India that seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their place of work. The Act came into force from 9 December 2013. As per this act every employer is supposed to set up an Internal Complaints Committee which would hear such cases of harassment at work and work towards providing a safe workplace for women.
India Inc. still needs to be 100% compliant to this new Act on sexual harassment at work. Nearly 31 percent of the companies surveyed by Ernst & Young were not complying with this. However, my concern is more about the women. Recent articles or posts on internet suggest that more than half of the women who are victims to such harassment at work do not report such cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if this count was as high as 70-80%.
And I don’t blame them. What a woman goes through to get a fair working environment is torturous. First the days of being a victim, then the struggles of taking a decision to report the incidents, then the inquiry, then the doubt whether she encouraged such behavior or not, then coming out clean and being abused by the offender for ruining his career. And then the days of proving her as a normal being at workplace.
Stories that I have seen and heard in this short corporate career of mine do not provide an encouraging platform. Many women had to shift jobs after having raised such a complaint and some had to live with the curses of the wife whose husband got fired. Not every girl has the courage to raise her voice, some just prefer to quietly shift jobs or cities.
Women should feel safe to work by design and not by the virtue of a power to lodge a complaint. This needs a larger intervention and a cultural acceptability from corporate- being compliant to a law is one thing and implementing it in its true spirit is another.
Image courtesy: lifeofPix.com
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