Saifa Tazrin Rati, LL.B., University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
ABSTRACT
In a male-dominated society, it has always been difficult for women to overcome all the prejudices and make place for themselves. Until 1990, the GDP growth rate of India had consistently been less than 4% each year. Following a market slump in 1991, the Government of India immediately opened markets and initiated an economic liberalization program. Since India's economic reforms in 1991, the country's annual GDP growth rate has stabilized at a more robust 6 to 7 percent each year.1 Unfortunately, the participation of women in educational institutions and the workforce has constantly been decreasing throughout the years since the beginning of the twentieth century whereas there was supposed to be a different outcome after achieving the 90’s economic boom. Among various other reasons behind such reduction of women’s participation in building the future of the country, unsafe workplace, gender-based discrimination, and absence of proper leverage for women in the job sectors became the gargantuan obstacles. As per the demand of time and situation, the Government of India has enacted two remarkable legislations, the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 (followed by the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017) and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. The former act provided beneficiary principles for pregnant female employees and the latter for protecting all female employees from unwanted sexual assault, harassment, and bullying at the workplace. This paper will critically discuss the special features of these two legislations enacted for protecting the women working in the paid workforce and also evaluate the limitations of the same.
