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'17 percent of Indian working women face sexual harassment'
Tuesday November 27, 2012 09:21:54 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: As many as
17 percent of working women in India have experienced sexual
harassment at their workplace, according to a survey released
Tuesday.
The survey was conducted in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai,
Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Durgapur by Oxfam India and the
Social and Rural Research Institute.
"About 17 percent of working women in India feel that they have
experienced acts of sexual harassment at workplace, indicating a
high incidence of sexual harassment among working women from both
the organised and unorganised sectors," the survey found.
Majority of women reported to have faced incidents that were
non-physical.
"Sixtysix of the 400 respondents reported to have faced a
cumulative of 121 incidents of sexual harassment. 102 out of 121
incidents were reported to be non-physical, whereas the remaining
19 incidents were physical in nature," the survey said.
While 87 percent of the general population and 93 percent of
working women respondents reported awareness of sexual harassment
of women at work place, a majority of the victims did not resort
to any formal action against the perpetrator.
Maximum number of sexual harassment cases was reported among
labourers (29 percent), domestic helps (23 percent) and
small-scale manufacturing units (16 percent).
"Violence against women is a human rights violation, whether it is
domestic violence within homes or sexual harassment at the
workplace. We believe in the right of every woman to a violence
free workplace," said Nisha Agrawal, chief executive officer,
Oxfam India.
Majority of respondents perceived women working in the unorganised
sector to be more susceptible to sexual harassment due to lack of
awareness of legislation.
Interestingly, 26 percent reported to be the sole earning member
of their families, indicating that economic vulnerability further
makes women more vulnerable to harassment at the workplace.
Some of the reasons for not taking any such action were "fear of
losing job", "absence of any complaints mechanism at the
workplace", "fear of getting stigmatized", and "not aware of
redressal mechanism".
The survey also found that the Supreme Court guidelines on sexual
harassment were known to as many as 17 percent of the respondents
amongst the general population. It was found that awareness of the
apex court guidelines was higher in metro cities - 24 percent as
compared to other areas.
"Although sexual harassment of women is a very sensitive issue,
and off late has had a lot of prominence, most workplaces often
fail to acknowledge sexual harassment as a concern. Overall, more
than 80 percent of the respondents reported the need for a
separate law for dealing with sexual harassment at work place," it
added.
The Lok Sabha in September had passed the Sexual Harassment of
Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill,
2012, and it is expected to come up for discussion in the Rajya
Sabha in the ongoing winter session.
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