The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act (“POSH Act”) came into being on 9th December 2013. The Act widened the definition of the workplace and covered the informal sector, including domestic workers. Popularly known as the POSH Act, it provides protection to all workers in the public and private sectors including health, sports, education, or government institutions, and any place visited by the employee during the course of her employment, including transportation.

POSH is compulsory to ensure safety at workplaces for every person and it is also in keeping with our Constitution which talks about right to equality at workplace. It not only provides an alternative to filing a criminal complaint with police, but also mandates employers to set up committees in case of a private company, or local government officials in case of the informal sector, to hear complaints, conduct inquiries, and recommend action to be taken against perpetrators. This can range from a written apology to termination of employment. Women can still file police complaints under the Indian Penal Code dealing with sexual harassment or assault. But unlike a criminal case that could drag on for years, the complaints committees are expected to offer quick and effective remedy.

The Act further aspires to ensure women’s right to workplace equality, free from sexual harassment and in practice setting up a mechanism which:

• Prohibits unwelcome behaviour that constitutes workplace sexual harassment;
• Champions prevention of workplace sexual harassment through orientation, awareness and sensitization sessions.
• Provides a detailed framework for redressal.
• Instills a sense of security in an organization;
• Encourages participation of women towards our economic growth and GDP; and
• Teaches the organizations to deal with such issues with compassion and nip them in the bud instead of brushing them under the carpet.

After the POSH enactment, it has now been made mandatory for all workplaces in India are to provide a safe and secure working environment free from sexual harassment for all women. It was thought that through an effective implementation of the Act, where every authority plays its role in consonance to the other authority, the preventive benefit will be threefold:

• It will ensure a place where women workers can get redress. 
• It will send a clear message to the general public and women in particular that a specially designated committee with external expertise will enquire into complaints.
• Prevent a series of expensive and time-consuming litigation.

A 2017 survey by the Indian National Bar Association of over 6,000 employees—the largest conducted so far in India—found that sexual harassment was pervasive in different job sectors, ranging from lewd comments to an outright demand for sexual favors. Most women, it found, chose not to report sexual harassment to management because of stigma, fear of retribution, embarrassment, lack of awareness of reporting policies, or lack of confidence in the complaints mechanism. It also found that most organizations still failed to comply with the law, or members of Internal Committees did not understand the process adequately.

It has been rightly said that-“Prevention is better than cure”. POSH Act makes an attempt to strike the problem in its root. An endeavour has been made through this enactment wherein specific duties have been put on the employer to ensure that there is increased awareness about the problem of sexual harassment, and the consequences that can ensue owing to the presence of the POSH Act. Making the employer accountable for what happens to the employees under him goes a long way in ensuring compliance of any enactment that is made for the benefit of the workforce. The biggest problem that is faced by India today is the difficulty that arises in assigning proper accountability to the employer. In such circumstances, the District Officer has been assigned with the duty to take appropriate measures for engaging NGOs for awareness creation on sexual harassment rights of women. Awareness of a right is the first step towards implementation of that law. Hence, for effective implementation of the Act on grass-root level, it is important that women are aware of the mechanism put in place for redressal of sexual harassment cases. With 75% to 95% of workers in India employed in establishments with less than ten workers, the constitution and functioning of the Local Committees are critical for the success of this Act. In August 2018, a civil society organization had to get court orders to force the government to constitute Local Committees in Tamil Nadu. In Karnataka it was done a year earlier, after repeated requests under the Right to Information Act asking for details were posted to the state Women’s Commission. Experience shows that in many of the Indian states where the local committees have been formed, they are inaccessible and rarely publicized, though they are key to the implementation of the POSH Act. 

The implementation of the Act is not the sole responsibility of the private sector. The state cannot abdicate its responsibilities as the majority of the workforce in India are not in establishments that are mandated to have ICs but would be directly under the purview of the LCs, which are solely the responsibility of the government. Hence, it is even more imperative that the government defines the chain of responsibility. While the Women’s Commission has taken the lead, the Labour Department, the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the State Legal Services Authority and the police need to focus their efforts and coordinate their actions. Seven years after the 2013 law was enacted, the government has still not published any data or information on the functioning or effectiveness of published any data or information on the functioning or effectiveness of Local Committees that are responsible for dealing with sexual harassment.

A 2018 study by the Martha Farrell Foundation and Society for Participatory Research in Asia based on Right to Information requests to 655 districts in the country found many districts had failed to establish the committees or constitute them in line with the legal provisions. Even where they existed, it is difficult to find any information on websites or public spaces displaying their names and location.

The study also found a lack of awareness regarding roles and responsibilities among the committee members, indicating a lack of capacity to handle sexual harassment complaints. Out of 655 districts in the country, 29 percent replied that they had formed Local Committees, while 15 percent had not done so. The majority, 56 percent, did not respond. By May 2020, even in the capital, Delhi, only 8 out of 11 districts had constituted Local Committees. Anagha Sarpotdar, chair of the Mumbai city district Local Committee since 2018, said that by May 2020, the committee had only received five complaints, all from the formal sector.  She said : 

 “There is no awareness about the Local Committees because the central government has not given any money to state governments to spread awareness. This is directly reflecting in low reporting. The implementation of the law has failed in the informal sector. Committee members are not even paid travel fees in some cases. There is no money earmarked in the budget for the implementation of the POSH Act.”

In the light of the above-mentioned data, some suggestive measures for strengthening the implementation of The Act are as follows:

• Even though the POSH Act assigns responsibility to the District Officer for implementing the preventive guidelines, it is equally imperative that the LCC also takes an active part in not only coming forward as a redressal mechanism but also as a preventive measure.
• The names of the LCC members along with their contact details need to be made readily available so that the women know who to approach and where in times of need and can file their complaints without facing any difficulty.
• The aggrieved woman needs to be properly made aware of the procedure involved under the POSH Act so that she can make an informed choice as to whether she wants to settle that matter in an informal way or to opt or the formal route given under The Act.
• The LCC and the nodal officer should be properly trained so that they can further aid in capacity building and training sessions organised further.