
The News Minute | July 16, 2014 | 6 pm ISTEver notice a male colleague at work talks to a woman’s chest? Needs a little reminding that a woman’s face is above her neck, and not below? All this could amount to sexual harassment at the workplace and both men and women in a work place need to know how to be able to handle it.While men talking women’s chests are not uncommon, far more serious kinds of harassment and unwanted attention are directed at women by male colleagues who may or may not be in a position of power over the women employees.But in order to ensure that women are able to work in a dignified manner and free from harassment, organizations – both public and private – need to implement the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act 2013.And to teach them, and any interested person about that law, a Delhi-based NGO called Centre for Social Research has started an online course, (free of charge for individuals). All it takes is a few hours for you to know what the rights of a woman are at the workplace and what sort of behaviour constitutes. Director of CSR Ranjana Kumari told The News Minute that there was a need for people to know about the lghaw. She said: “Women put up with unwanted advances, unwanted comments, they go through hell.”She insisted that private establishments did not implement the act, and that a year after the law was enacted, there was no information on compliance with the law. She said that there had been requests from several government organizations such as the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Reserve Bank of India, Air India to organize training sessions on the provisions of the law. The government should undertake a study of compliance. She also said that the CSR offered training sessions to organizations who sought training in the law. Kumari said that for organizations, the online course was insufficient as “beyond a point, face to face” training was necessary. She added that organizations needed to know how to deal with complaints, what sort of questions to ask, how to gauge a situation and so on, which required more than an online lesson.