SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT WORKPLACE BILL
WCD’s arrogance is driving Indian Males to Civil Disobedience
There was a furor over the way the Sexual Harassment at workplace bill was drafted and brutally pushed through the throat of the country men .
• Representations from hundreds of citizens were ignored by the WCD ministry with down right fascist comments below.
The fascist nature in which the WCD had suppressed all representations were widely published by the media.
Thousands of articles in many prestigious Indian journals explained the flaws of the bill and demanded changed and corrections to the various sections
• Surveys were conducted by the Economic times , and Synovate across 6 Indian cities to expose the fat that men face more s*xual harassment than women and must be given protection
• Hundreds TV debates which concluded on the fact that the Sexual Harassment Act in the present form is very poorly drafted and has presented the totally Gender neutral problem as a women’s only problem.
• Eminent social workers like Madhu Kishwar supported the fact the Sexual harassment at workplace Bill in its present from was another attempt at creating an extortion law and needs to amended.
WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME OF ALL THIS? THE CABINET UNDER PRESSURE FROM THE WCD PASSED THIS BILL !!
This shocking action of the cabinet further bolsters the case and leads me to believe that the cabinet is controlled by the WCD and acts according to the pressure from the WCD and gives a hoot to what the citizenry think of a law that will be imposed on them. This also leads us to believe that the members of the cabinet also may be receiving favors from the WCD of a illegal nature which makes them clear such poorly drafted and senseless laws without any review or public debate.
This sort of bias against men in general has today taken the form of the pre-independence type of government bias the British used to have on the native Indians and calls for the same as solution preached by the father of the nation himself, “Civil Disobedience by men”.
Here is the reality ! Indian Men are MORE vulnerable to Sexual Harassment as compared to Women!
The Prestigious Indian news paper “The Economic Times” along with another very credible global market research company, Synovate conducted an extensive survey in
As part of this very credible and extensive research 527 people queried in the survey across seven cities in the country -Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. Below are excerpts from the report to expose how often Males are s*xually harassed.
a)
b)
c)
d) 38% of the respondents agreed that in today’s workplaces, even men are as vulnerable to s*xual harassment as women. In
e) Many of the corporate and PSUs, ET spoke to, agree to this new trend and point out that many male employees do not come out in the open and file complaints because they feel they will not be believed, considering India’s social beliefs. They usually seek a transfer to get out of the situation or find a new job.
From the above facts of the report it can be concluded that Sexual Harassment of Males at Workplace in
A 2006 government study in the
Does the Vishaka Judgement Hold good even today?
The laws of India are twice as old as India itself and the legislature for reasons known best to it seems to find it enormous difficult to amend and change laws like adultery which were created more than a century ago. On the same lines the Honorable Supreme court had passed the Vishakha Judgement that was best suited for the prevailing conditions in 90’s. The Indian social structure have undergone tremendous upheaval, since thereafter, and now it is the men who are found to constantly at the receiving end of the harassment at the workplace, as the Economic times rightly points out.
Even after the Vishakha Judgment was delivered no attempt was made to gather true and unbiased data on the lines of the economic times survey from either the World or India to understand, if the problem of Sexual harassment is a Gender Neutral problem or is a women’s only problem. As a consequence the drafting committee of the proposed Sexual harassment law most ignorantly assumed that Sexual Harassment like a rape is a crime of passion and can be committed by men on women.
The present Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill also misses another very important fact that Sexual Harassment unlike Rape is not a crime of passion, but is a crime of power and whosoever is a position of power can commit this crime irrespective of gender. Thus the present format of the Bill, essentially views Sexual harassment as a crime of passion like Sexual Assault and has totally ignored any protection for males.
Women rub shoulders with men in crime and 80% of the country is corrupt
A survey conducted by a sociologist of Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU) concluded that modern day Indian women are rubbing shoulders with their male counterparts in the field of crime. The report also stated that the involvement of women involvement seldom comes to the fore because the parents or guardians shield them for the sake of family honour. On the other hand, men are often caught despite not being a party to the crime simply because of the fact that they are aware about the incident or due to the bad company in which they move. The report is attached as Annexure [1].
The outgoing CVC chief openly stated that about 30% of Indians are utterly corrupt and about 50% are on the borderline and can be corrupted if presented with a situation. Given that over 80% of the country is corrupt, what is the justification behind creating laws which can be easily used as weapon for extortion.
From the above data it can be concluded with reasonable accuracy that given that half the country is composed of women, over 40% of the Indian women are also corrupt.
The facts of the CVC and the conclusions from the survey can easily be verified and the measured by the scale of misuse of laws by women and their family members to extort money whenever presented with a lucrative situation where money can be made. Almost every day there are articles in the press on how Indian women do not think twice before filing false s*xual harassment charges for ulterior motives. No matter what the issue of disgruntlement is Sexual harassment is used as a weapon of choice by Indians to malign others . There have also been cases Husbands have instigated wives to use this false allegations of harassment to get even with Male colleagues of the Husband. When dealing with such an irresponsible population the government must be extremely cognizant of what sort of wording is used in the law so that it does not serve to aid a person’s ulterior motive.
Some high profile media covered instances of Misuse of the Sexual harassment allegations are listed below.
Some recent s*xual harassment blacklist examples
1) Airhostess Komal Singh Case :- Both Air India and Apex feminist body of India NCW ruled that airhostess Komal Singh was not molested, but even then she preferred to use s*xual harassment charges against the pilots . Further investigation unearthed serious indiscipline and misconduct by the airhostess in a flight full of people to cover which these allegations were leveled. Will Komal Singh ever receive any punishment for misusing the law or will the pilots be compensated for loss of reputation? Probably not.
2) General Nanda case :- A court of inquiry (COI) into the allegations against Army's engineer-in- chief Lt-Gen A K Nanda has exonerated him, while recommending disciplinary action against Colonel C P S Pasricha, whose wife accused the general of s*xually harassing his wife. However will Colonel Pasricha’s wife ever receiving punishment for maligning the reputation of a General? Probably never
3) Female Wrestler Sonika Kaliraman case :- Indian female grappler Sonika Kaliraman's recent allegations of s*xual harassment by the selection committee and coaching staff of WFI was dismissed by her own teammates, who described the charges as "baseless and "malicious". In a letter, signed by as many as 30 female wrestlers members, including famous ones like Uma Devi, Alka Tomar, Babita Singh among others, supported the selection trial and termed the complainant Sonika as undisciplined, irresponsible and frustrated.
The blacklist of misuse if continued in itself consume the entire volume of the letter and is a open example than given an opportunity there will be people more then eager to misuse loosely drafted laws to achieve ulterior gains.
Flaws with the present proposed draft of “Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill”
1. Constitutional Violation
A subsection of an Article in a Constitution (Article 15(3)) cannot be used to overrule the main article in the constitution (Article 15). Article 15(3) of the constitution merely provides for special provisions for women and children, it does not permit the framing of special laws which will violate the essence of the Main Article 15. Had that been the case, the constitution of
2. Clear Violation of Vishakha Guidelines
The SHWB is based on the guidelines laid down in the landmark Vishakha judgment by the Honorable Supreme Court. The guidelines mentioned in the judgement nowhere mentions that a prequalification to be a member of the Sexual harassment Committee is that the person “shall be committed to the cause of women”. However, by involving NGOs “committed to the cause of women”, the government of
3. Economically disastrous recommendation
By making it mandatory to pay remuneration to the committee members irrespective of instances of s*xual harassment reported, creates unnecessary financial burden on companies. In times of global recession such financial burden will only lead to further economic losses to Indian companies. It will lead to an increase in poverty, crime and corruption.
4. Justice delivery mechanism will become a fish market NGOs and their appointees will have to be paid after getting appointed to the committee even if there are no instances or cases of Sexual Harassment at all. The involvement of the payment model will lead to NGOs selling justice for a price and NGOs competing with each other to get appointed into committees to get financial payouts.
5. Punishment for misuse is not “Mandatory”, but “Discretionary”
By making punishment for misuse discretionary, the bill opens the scope for negotiation between the parties to either avoid punishment or settle the matter. This provision will also lead to motivation for filing more and more false cases to settle personal scores - A trend very commonly observed in the use of section 498a and Domestic Violence Act of 2005.
6. News of False cases / Misuse will be legally suppressed
In a democratic nation, transparency is the key to success of governance. To ensure the same the government of
This is nothing but double standards on part of the government.
7. Bargaining “Punishment” with “settlement” of cases
By legally providing a mechanism to bargain punishment with settlement the act in itself becomes a tool for “legal extortion”. This will also initiate a rate race among NGOs to have themselves represented in various companies in order to grab a pie of settlement. Such trends will undermine the real essence of the act and a parallel extortion industry will start spawning.
8. Unconstitutional and undemocratic process followed during the drafting of the bill
RTI responses have exposed that during the drafting of the Sexual Harassment at workplace bill, the WCD ministry had received numerous representations from concerned Indian citizens to make the SHWB law gender neutral but did not heed to any one of them. If public opinion of making the law gender neutral is to be finally totally trampled with, then why carry the farce of calling suggestions, in the name of democratic law making, from the citizenry and then discard it?
The WCD ministry chose to trample all the representations by the below outrageously s*xist statements degrading the modesty of men as compared to women. The WCD ministry stated the below.
“The overwhelming nature of s*xual harassment is s*xual harassment of women on account of their female s*x. Harassment of men cannot be put on the same footing character wise or incidence wise.
Protection of men is also not the mandate of Ministry of WCD”.
1) “The overwhelming nature of s*xual harassment is s*xual harassment of women on account of their female s*x”
This is a totally false and unscientific “assumption” that the WCD makes and has been disproved by the Economic times survey. The WCD Ministry or the Supreme Court does not have any data to back this argument because the government of
Drafting laws based on hallucinated assumptions can lead to disastrous social consequences and cannot be allowed.
2) “Harassment of men cannot be put on the same footing character wise or incidence wise”
The WCD ministry must be called upon to explain the meaning of this sentence and on what basis they concluded that the harassment of men is on a lesser footing than women. Does the WCD consider men any less of human beings than women? Is the stigma and suffering of a man any less than women if s*xually harassed at workplace? The comments of WCD are openly violating Article 15 of the Constitution, which prohibits against any discrimination on grounds of s*x and cannot be held with any credibility.
3) “Protection of men is also not the mandate of Ministry of WCD”
The WCD ministry is absolutely right in its above observation. Having said that, as they officially accept they do not represent more than 50% of the population; they have no moral or social right whatsoever to draft a law affecting the whole population of
Creation of a Government Fund to compensate victims of Sexual Harassment law
Since the government has chosen to remain blissfully ignorant on the plight of Indian males infact being repeatedly reminded and shown the ground realities by NGO’s , Courts newspapers and TV , the government also own up to compensate the victims of the misuse of the laws it has drafted and supported.
I recommend that the Government create a separate MISUSE FUND for each biased anti male gender law it has drafted and supported and use it to compensate the victims of the misuse. With this the government will deliver on twin targets of adequately compensating the victims of misuse and successfully continuing to appease a few radical Govt. and non government women’s organizations thereby allowing the creation of gender biased laws. The Budget for the fund can be sought from the fund of the WCD or the NCW since they play the most active role in drafting such contrived and dubious gender laws.
Demands / Recommendations
a) A new Sexual harassment Bill be drafted ONLY FOR MEN since from the data it is clear that men are the ones who are the majority of victims.
b) Proper sections be incorporated in the law to counsel men and encourage them to report s*xual harassment either from women or other men. In other words provisions must exist to help men overcome the social stigma comparing s*xual harassment
c) Creation of a government funded “misuse fund” to compensate victims of false allegations of Sexual harassment when cases of misuse are detected.
d) Removal of the ministries like WCD and NCW which are filled with ideologues with Misandry from lawmaking and replacing them with gender neutral and sane ministries who will consider the principles of natural justice or the universal declaration of human rights, credible research data, global Facts and figures, public opinion and most importantly even common sense while drafting laws.
e) The mandatory inclusion of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as a watchdog group in every gender law making committee so that men are not deliberately discriminated against and Article 15 of the Constitution is not violated again and Article 15 (3) is not wrongly interpreted and that the people’s opinion are not brutally trampled as has been done in the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill.
f) The mandatory inclusion of corporate bodies like FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM and a corporate committee comprising an equal number of male and female members from the industry so that interests of both genders are kept in mind while drafting laws to truly achieve a equal opportunity workplace.
g) Involving external NGO based on legal knowledge and their background of delivering justice on merits and not merely being women’s rights champions.
h) Allowing the reporting of all cases true or false in the media so that the magnitude of use or misuse can be measured in the present proposed draft of “Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill”
i) Provision of any sort of settlement must be removed the present proposed draft of “Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill”.
The accused must be either punished or the complaint must be deemed as false and action taken by default against the complainant.
Thanking you
Yours truly,
tajobsindia@gmail.com ,
Links
[1]:- “Sorry sir, no harassment shield for men yet”
https://www.telegraphindia.com/1101017/jsp/nation/story_13066459.jsp
The Telegraph ,
[2]:- “Crime: Women rubbing shoulders with men”
Times of
