Sexual harassment of Women in Workplaces : A Grevious Concern

Discrimination in employment based on sex and sexual harassment violates the most basic principle of international human right law. of all the forms that violence against women can assume sexual harassment is the most ubiquitous and insidious, all the more so because it seems normal behaviour and not an assault on the female entity. it affects women in all settings whether public or private and have psychological, medical, social, political, legal and economic implications. instance of sexual harassment should not be viewed as isolated incidents.

work place is any place where the work relationship between the employer and the employee exists. your work place may be in office , a factory, a building, a private home, a school. and a store. a woman may work also work outdoors on a road crew or in a vehicle, the wash room , cafeteria and locker room that you use are part of your work place. so any other place where your employer does business. there are hardly any laws and policies are in place to protect her from harassment, no matter where she works. a woman may work as a home maker but a woman is still protected under the law. different work envirronments mens different ways of dealing with harassment. one may experience harassment while going place to place. this can also be seen as work place harassment. her employer cant graduate that she wont be harasses on a bus or walking along a street, but your safety on hte job or in the way ans from the job is their concern. some times harassment that occurs outside the work place affects womanswomans work. actions like these can cause problems or harm relationship among employees.
* some one from work follows you or hang around your home
* phone calls and letters and mails send to your home or computer.
*things happen at staff parties or retreats
thus work place harassment is when some one harass you while you are doing your job on your way to or from work. a harasser can be any one you come in contact of your work. the person might be a boss, superviser, manager, mwember of your board of directors, co workers, custmers,patient, delivery person, person in your union. harassment can happen anywhere in the work place. in the lunch room, in rest room or washroom areas. in staff rooms on the production line, in an office, you might also be harassed out side of your workplace. it can happen in a party, on a businesstrip or at a meeting at some ones home. harassment is not always workplace harassment, it dependson the situation and your relationshipto the harasser. if your boss is in your home and demands thast you have sex with him, it is still workplace harassment.if the co worker harass you at work its also a work place harassment. thus the employer of the women is responsible for any form of harassment that affects her in work place and her work.despite these wide connofation of the problem, women from every countery and culture continue to face sex discrimination and sexual harassment in work plaqces. the international community has recognizes both discrimination based on sex in the terms and conditions of employment and sexual harassment as violation of fundamental human rights to women. like other forms of violence here also there is demonstration of power and control and can cause physical, emotional, economic and proffessional injuries to those experience it. thi undermines the inherent dignity of a person and violates the right of every human being to physical and mentqal integrity. it violates a womans right to just and favourable working conditions.
this type of harassment of women is discriminatory when a woman has resonable grounds to believe that her ob jectionwould result in adverse employment actionfor when it creats a hostile working envirronment the honourable supreme court in its judgement dated 13.8.97 in vishakha and others vrs state of rajastan and others taking note of the fact tht the present civil and penal laws in india dont places and that enactment of such legislation will take consideration time, to formulate guidelines to prevent sexual harassment in work places. as such it becames an imperative to study and analize the concept of sexual harassment of working women in india and cause and effect of such a violationsof indivisual right which have resulted in marginalizing the women in work places. hence the ethnography explorative study is conducted to explore the possibilities of curbing this menance. the increse number of working women has brought in a lot of sexual ambiguity into work places. sexual harassment has given up in direct proportion to the numbers emerging out of the home into economic and attitude independence. a centuries old life of entrenched priviledgs is under threat and nothing has prepared males for the situation. this mind set converts itself into the demanding behaviour we hsave to putup with, men brought up in orthodox and conventional homes that tend to be sexually repressed are not often not capable to handling proximity with women.

the supreme court of india passes certain guidelines detailing sexual harassment which further passed in parliament and formed a act to curb sexual harassment in work places and directives are sent to state governmrnts and private and public sector to form a committee to prevent sexual harassment of womwn in work places. they are
* unwelcome sexually determinded behaviour(whether directly or by implications)
* physical contact and advances
*demand or requewst for sexual forms
*sexually coloured remarks
*showing pornography
*anyother unwelcome physical or non verbal conduct of a sexual nature.

in bringing the seriousness of this issue to lime light the non government organizations have sucessfullu highlighted the issues and acted in favour of eradicating and preventing this malady. womens tribunal a paralleled NGO event at the conference of human rights in vienna (1993) presents evidence and spakers from around the world of human rights violations especially violence against women. a recent devlopment of gret importance and interest is the emerge NGOs as advocates, arbitrators, activists for the spectrum of issue from human rights to the envirronment from political and accountability o media monitoring and consumer protection. the world summit for social devlopment (copenhagen1995) called attention to the pivotal role of women in devlopment. it also focoused attention on womens social issues and the discriminatary practices tht present their full participation in society.

advancement of right of women to has been the concern of the world community since if second worls war.the international conference of population and devlopment held in cairo in 1994 was a break through.empowering women and improving their status and essntial to realizeing the full potentioal of economic, political and social devlopments. empowering women is an important enf in itself. atrocities against women in india are noit a new concept. the fact that the opionators, acamedicans and all concerned citizens have stated gradually realizing the sexual harassment to women in work place is a serious violation of fundamental rights asa man and and special rights generated to her under the indian constitution.