Workplace Sexual Harassment And Informal Sector Women Workers In India: Limitations Of The Sexual Harassment Of Women At Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition And Redressal) Act, 2013
- IJLLR Journal
- 5 minutes ago
- 1 min read
Trapti Verma, (Ph.D. Scholar) (Law), Institute of Legal Studies, CCS University Meerut
Dr. Apeksha Choudhary, Assistant Professor, Institute of Legal Studies, CCS University Meerut
ABSTRACT
Sexual harassment in the workplace negatively affects gender equality, labour dignity and safe employment. To prevent and redeem the harassment in the workplace a statutory machinery aptly called Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 has been established in India. But the effectiveness of the legislation has been debated in regard to the informal sector women workers. Women involved in domestic work, agriculture, home-based work, sanitation and community work, and platform-based work often work outside of institutional settings and are unable to access complaints handling and/or legal protection mechanisms.
The paper discusses the shortcomings of the POSH Act, 2013 in providing protection to the informal sector women workers in India. The study examines the international, constitutional and judicial frameworks supporting the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace, and considers the problems that arise in relation to the accessibility, implementation and institutional accountability of statutory regimes within the POSH framework. The paper suggests that the Liabilities of complains files/weaknesses of the complaint process are one of the reasons that dilute the informal women worker activeness of Local Committee due to some procedural barriers/limitation. Towards the end, the paper proposes to enhance institutional compliance, awareness creation and work-specific implementation methods.
Keywords: Workplace Sexual Harassment; Informal Sector Women Workers; POSH Act, 2013; Local Committee; Labour Rights; Gender Justice.
