After a torrent of sexual harassment cases came to the fore against eminent personalities, the Narendra Modi government has sprung into action constituting a Group of Minister(GoM) under home minister Rajnath Singh’s supervision to bolster law and order framework to fight sexual harassment at workplace.
The GoM will comprise of three other ministers as well- defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari and women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi will all be part of the committee that will suggest actions to be implemented in providing legal and institutional framework to deal with matters of sexual harassment of women at workplace.
The Home Ministry said, “A group of ministers has been commissioned in the view of the need for broader consultation on this issue, with the belief of developing appropriate recommendations and laying down a comprehensive plan of action and for ensuring its timely implementation.” The Home Ministry contended that they are committed to upholding the safety and dignity of women in the workplace.
A time frame of 3 months has been allotted to the GoM for examining the existing safety provisions for women and develop recommendations to further strengthen them and make it more effective.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act is a key legislation in ensuring the safety of women at workplace and for effective redressal of the complaint raised by them. The Ministry of women and child development has also launched an Electronic Complaint Box that empowers and facilitates women to raise complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace. Once the complaint is lodged, it is transmitted to the authority concerned having jurisdiction to act on it. A mechanism will be put in place to monitor the accountability of these authorities.