Slow Progress to creating a safe workplace for women

Context: 

The recent case of allegations of sexual harassment that some of India’s wrestling sportswomen are said to have faced had to sit in protest in the capital to make themselves heard.  

Related Steps:

• The Vishaka guidelines and POSH Act, 2013: It has evolved into the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2013.
• The guidelines on reporting harassment of women are meant to be followed by government and private institutions equally. 

Issues: Structural violence, data on workforce:

• Structural: Violence, in the form of sexual harassment at the workplace, is both direct and structural. 
• Environment: While an enabling environment for reporting direct violence has shown a gradual improvement, indirect violence remains poorly addressed because it is embedded deep in our social and economic structures.
• Patriarchal mindset: This mindset enabled men to feel entitled and empowered to take undue advantage.
• Data: The Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) annual report available for 2020-21 shows that though the participation of women in the total labour force grew, i.e., Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) has gradually increased and the Worker Population Ratio (WPR) has gradually increased too, but it is still much less when compared to men.

LFPR & WPR:

• LFPR is defined as the percentage of persons in the labour force among the persons in population (i.e., both employed and unemployed or seeking employment), WPR is the percentage of persons employed among the persons in population.

Steps needed to be taken: Start early, and at home:

• Environment: The presence of an enabling and safe working environment. 
• Complain & redressal: Women need to be aware about the complain mechanism of sexual harassment and the redressal mechanism should be unbiased and effective. 
• Job security: Need to provide job security by increasing the female participation in the labour force, improvement of tooth-to-tail ratio, and providing incentives to prevent drop-outs such as paid maternity leave.
• Mindset: Need to develop a mindset of equality towards all, genders at an early stage of character formation during childhood.
• Both nature and nurture: Both genetics and the environment affect an individual’s development, hence the mindset and environmental effects need to be positive to attain desired goal.
• Home environment & learning: Both parents respect each other and treat their girl and boy child on a par in all respects, they grow up learning this equality as a normal phenomenon, which may lead to the development of positive behavior.

Conclusion: 

Unless society as a whole works incessantly to bring about the required changes in the existing socio-cultural and economic structures to eliminate indirect violence, root and branch, the status quo may not change.

News Source: The Hindu