The Sexual Harassment of Woman at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH)

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013, also known as the POSH Act, is a law that aims to prevent and address sexual harassment in the workplace. The act applies to all workplaces, including government, private, and non-governmental organizations.
The Bhanwari Devi gang rape case that occurred in 1992 can be called the juncture from which the demand for legislation on workplace harassment began. Bhanwari Devi was working under the Haryana government in the Women and Child Development Department as a social worker. She was engaged in preventing child marriage when she was gang-raped by people from the dominant and affluent Gurjar community. Thereafter, the occurrence received extensive coverage by the media when the accused were acquitted by the lower court. In response to this episode, in 1997, certain Non-Governmentalorganisationss filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court to protect the fundamental rights of women under Articles 14, 19, and 21. This petition specifically addressed the issue of sexual harassment of women in the workplace. The Supreme Court, noticing the absence of domestic law on this matter, issued the Vishakha guidelines to fill the vacuum until legislation on the subject was enacted. It took 16 years for the legislature to pass the POSH Act since the Vishakha guidelines were issued.
Key components of POSH Act
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act) is landmark legislation that provides a comprehensive framework for addressing sexual harassment at the workplace. The Act defines sexual harassment as any unwelcome act or behaviour of a sexual nature, whether verbal, physical, or visual, that is:
A demand or request for sexual favours;
A promise of preferential treatment in exchange for sexual favours;
A threat of reprisal for refusing to submit to sexual advances; or
Any other conduct of a sexual nature that is unwelcome.
The Act also sets out a process for reporting and investigating sexual harassment complaints. Complaints can be filed by the victim or by any person on her behalf. The complaint must be filed with the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) or the Local Complaints Committee (LCC), depending on the size of the workplace.
The ICC, or LCC, is responsible for investigating the complaint and taking appropriate action. The action that can be taken includes:
Reprimanding the accused;
Transferring the accused to a different position;
Suspending the accused;
Termination of the accused’s employment;
Filing a criminal complaint against the accused.
The POSH Act also provides for a number of safeguards for the victim, including:
Confidentiality of the complaint;
Protection from retaliation;
Access to legal aid.
The POSH Act is a significant step forward in the fight against sexual harassment in the workplace. It provides a clear and comprehensive framework for addressing sexual harassment, and it offers a number of safeguards for victims. The Act is a valuable tool for creating workplaces that are free from sexual harassment. This kind of regulation is effective in reducing the workload of the judiciary and in providing speedy justice to aggrieved women, which will eventually give female employees confidence that they are protected and will discourage more such acts of harassment.
Provisions related to prevention of workplace harassment
Section 2(n) defines “sexual harassment” as any unwelcome physical contact and advances, sexually coloured remarks, requests for sexual favours, showing pornography, or any other unwelcome physical, verbal, or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature. Section 2(o) defines the scope of “workplace” to include all government and private workplaces. These two terms are essential components of Section 3, which prohibits sexual harassment. Subsection (2) of Section 3 lists circumstances that may constitute sexual harassment if they are found to be related to or in connection with any act or behaviour of sexual harassment. These circumstances include: implied or express promises of preferential treatment, threats of detrimental treatment, threats about employment status, interference with work, creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile work environment, and humiliating treatment likely to affect health or safety.
The endless struggle of women groups and individuals has no doubt helped in procuring legislation, which does give confidence to many working women about their safety. The Act provides comprehensive provisions for achieving the main objective, but the problem is the non-implementation of these provisions. The solution to these problems is to make stringent rules but more than that, it is to bring gender sensitive programmes and education that will not warrant such legislation in the future.