There has been a rise in cases of sexual harassment at workplaces and even educational institutions. Such cases have to be dealt with sensitivity. It is often a challenge for HR departments to handle the situation in the best possible manner and bring justice to the victim. Often, the victim is not even aware of the past instances of any misconduct of a boss or a colleague. A common thought that occurs is how to stop this. Well here’s one solution: A software programme, Callisto, has just been developed. But currently it only focuses on educational institutions.
Colleges need such a platform
According to the National Sexual Assault Resource Center, one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college, as will one in 16 men. And while 20% of women in colleges face sexual harassment, hardly 10% report them. Calisto lets students to log in and file a report of the incident. There is a provision to ‘save the report for later’ and a third option which is called ‘match’. The match option shows if the same person who harassed this student has been involved in such cases in the past. The idea here is to identify people with a track record as repeat offenders. The report gets recorded with the time and date of the report so that any future contradictions can be cross-verified. Some popular institutions have already subscribed to Callisto and appear to be happy with the outcomes so far.
The brain behind Callisto
Jessica Ladd is the brain behind Callisto to colleges in the US. She sees this as a niche area where very few businesses from Silicon Valley or elsewhere seem to have entered.
In a report by CNN, Ladd says that corporate entities should also try Callisto out. There is still some hesitation with business organisations, particularly their issue with a third party collecting information about their internal happenings. But the flip side of it the same HR can cite the Callisto report and stay neutral and take penal action against such offenders, especially the habitual ones.
While this one start at handling sexual harassment at workplaces and educational institutions, Indian institutions and companies, too, can adopt such new technologies to help improving the conditions in which women work.
Image: Leon Israel