India: 88% women victims of sexual harassment

at workplace

Aarti Dhar
15 November 2010
 

An overwhelming number of women working in India’s flourishing IT

sector have been victims of some form of sexual harassment at their
workplace, reveals a survey. Mostly, the perpetrators are senior
employees.

New Delhi: Just as the Cabinet approved a bill that seeks to protect women
from sexual harassment at workplaces, a survey by a non-governmental
organisation has claimed that nearly 88% of the female workforce in Indian
Information Technology and business process outsourcing and knowledge
process outsourcing (BPO/KPO) companies reported having suffered some
form of workplace sexual harassment during the course of their work. Close
to 50% women had been subjected to abusive language, physical contact or
been sought sexual favours from, it said.

The “Workplace Sexual Harassment Survey,'' carried out by the Centre for
Transforming India, a non-profit organisation in the Information Technology
and BPO/KPO industries has brought out some startling revelations about
the status of implementation of policies to prevent such harassment.

As many as 47% employees did not know where to report, while 91% did
not report for fear of being victimised.

The survey covering 600 female employees working in IT and BPO industries
across all the major IT destinations of India revealed that there exists poor
awareness levels among female employees on the issue and a majority of
female employees continued with their ordeal due to fear of professional
victimisation. Another major finding was that more than 82% of the
incidents which could be classified as sexual incidents occurred outside the
boundaries of the office and in nearly 72% of the incidents the perpetrator
was a superior.

Workplace sexual harassment has been emerging as a critical challenge for

female employees working across industries, especially in the service sector.
While the manufacturing industry is largely regulated in terms of its working
environment, there exists little or no framework for reference of the service
industry. Furthermore, the service industry faces a challenge of working
24x7 which entails working at odd hours for the female employees and also
other professional and personal challenges.

The Information Technology and the Information Technology Enabled

Services (IT/ITeS) industries were one of the first to develop some sort of
policy framework to address such issues.

It was observed that 60% of the respondents were not aware of the
workplace sexual harassment policies of their organisations. Around 10%
were only partially aware. This was a hurdle in getting redressal.

Policies not publicised

Of all the respondents, 77% stated that the details of sexual harassment
policies were not part of their hiring process, while only 7% stated that they
could recollect some discussion about the topic either during their hiring
process or later.

Workplace Relations

The relationships between our personal or family life and our working
life are two-way and can have an impact on each other. Relationships
we have in the workplace are a major part of our work—we spend 8–
10 h of our waking hours in the office. 
When there is a balance in our relationships at home and work, we
feelinvigorated and alive. Work-related difficulties and stresses
canaffect our personal and family well-being just as difficulties at
homecan affect our performances at work.

The types of difficulties that can affect work are very diverse and
include:
 Relationship conflict, crisis and distress.
 Conflicts and stress with work colleagues—supervisor,
employee work-mate, in a team.
 Decision making—home or work-related.
 Health-related stress, smoking, alcohol and drug use.
 Parenting issues.
 Family violence—emotional, physical, sexual abuse.
 Separation and divorce.
 Rebuilding after separation.
 Loss and grief.
 Adjusting to life transitions—children leaving home,
retirement, etc.
 Sexual concerns.