Virtual Work Place Sexual Harassment

Dr. Priya Kalyanasundaram, HOD, DEPARTMENT OF MBA, SANKARA

        Today the entire world is facing a huge challenge against covid -19. Our life has been entirely suspended by the pandemic. As the government across the world has implored people to stay at home and remote working has become the new mode of work and various platforms like Zoom, Skype Google Meet, etc has become the ideal choice for the business meetings. Even before covid -19  violence against women was one of the greatest human violations. As more countries have reported infection during lockdown and similarly more gender based violence have been reported all over the world like Argentina, Canada, Germany, Spain, U.K, etc. Government, women rights activist and civil society partners are receiving number of reports on violence. Although we focus on domestic violence but there is another aspect of the pandemic is  virtual sexual harassment which adversely affects employees physically and psychologically

Virtual Sexual Harassment Laws in India

The POSH Act (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is the primary legislation that ensures the protection of women against sexual harassment at the workplace  . Further the Act has been clear with its definition of workplace and employee thus including virtual offices and employees working remotely within the preview of the Act. Virtual sexual harassment takes place in an electronic platform and such acts of inappropriate behavior also amount to harassment under IT Act 2000 and this is also referred as online violence.

Major challenge for the organization is recognizing and addressing sexual harassment in remote working. The organization can conduct the following steps

Evaluate Existing Policies: Corporate need to update the existing POSH policies as per the new working environment, including the rise in remote working and utilization of digital technology.

POSH Training: Organization can conduct awareness training on what amounts to sexual harassment , dressing etiquette, and keeping the conversation limited to work, etc.

Grievance Procedure: The organization can provide equivalent source to the employees on how to report any information on sexual harassment.

Necessary Action : The organization has to take immediate action if any sexual harassment complaint has been received from the employees and it should be handled with high sensitivity and promptly.