Centre sets up GoM on sexual harassment

Centre sets up GoM on sexual harassment

News:

1. The Central Government has established a Group of Ministers (GoM) to recommend measures to tackle sexual harassment at the workplace.

Important Facts:

2. The GoM will come up with a comprehensive plan within three months and devise ways to ensure its time-bound implementation.
3. GoM will also recommend measures to strengthen the legal and institutional framework regarding sexual misconduct in response to the #MeToo campaign effectively implement the law against sexual harassment at the workplace.
4. Other measures to tackle sexual harassment:

• The Women and Child Development Ministry (MoWCD) has also launched an electronic complaints box (‘SHe-Box’)that enables women to bring to light any complaints of sexual harassment at workplace.
• A complaint is submitted to the ‘SHe-Box’, is directly sent to the concerned authority having jurisdiction to take action into the matter and a monitoring mechanism is put in place to regularly monitor the action taken on the complaints.

5. Justice Verma Committee:

Data:

• According to data by MoWCD, only 500 complaints of sexual harassment of women at the workplace in India were registered every year, over the last few years.
• In total, only 2164 complaints had been registered all over India since 2015.
• The largest number of complaints (since 2015) were registered in Uttar Pradesh, with a total of 627 complaints, while Delhi saw the second highest number of complaints being registered, at a total of 314.