Fewer women reported sexual harassment in India's top listed firms in FY19

Reporting relative to the number of women employees shows a decline over the previous year

In the financial year 2019 (FY19), scores of women, across industries, shared personal accounts of sexual harassment, most of these at work places. Borrowed from the west, it was supposed to be India’s #MeToo movement. However, data for India’s biggest companies weaves a different story, with fewer women reporting sexual harassment relative to the number of women employees.

Business Standard collected data from hundreds of annual reports across periods, as part of a yearly check on representation of marginalized groups and discrimination among companies forming part of the S&P BSE 100 index. The analysis looked at 76 companies for whom continuous data is available over the last three years.

For every 10,000 women employees with these companies, 10.59 sexual harassment complaints were filed in FY19. In fact, this is a decline in number of such complaints as compared to 10.65 complaints reported in FY18 and 11.1 reported in FY17. (See chart1)

Source: Business Responsibility Reports for S&P BSE 100 companies FY19, FY18 and FY17. Based on 76 companies with continuous data over last three years.

These 76 companies had a combined workforce of 5.04 lakh women who reported 534 incidents of sexual harassment in FY19. The ratio of complaints to women employees seems to be lower than what individual studies in the past have found, suggesting under-reporting. Oxfam India and the Social and Rural Research Institute together conducted a study called ‘Sexual Harassment at Workplaces in India 2011-2012’. It looked at 400 working women in eight Indian cities. Of the 400 respondents, 66 faced a cumulative 121 incidents of sexual harassment. This works out to a frequency of over 16.5 per cent (or 1,650 per 10,000 women employees).

Professor Krishna Menon - Professor, Gender Studies and currently Dean, School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi attributes the under-reporting on such cases to the absence of a strong support system. “What is seen in terms of reporting sexual harassment at workplaces is that a critical variable is a strong group of colleagues who would be there to (provide) support,” she said. According to Menon, an atmosphere where conversations about dignity of employees and participatory decision-making takes place on a regular basis is equally important.

The share of women employees was 22.51 per cent for financial year 2019 (as showed by an earlier story in this series), up a little from 21.73 per cent in FY18. It was under 10 per cent for six out of ten firms in the sample.

Menon also highlights social and economic barriers to reporting of sexual harassment cases. “Family honour or marriage prospects are among the many reasons cited to dissuade women from filing complaints and then there is of course the real fear of losing one's job.  Sexual harassment is seen more as a loss of honour for the family and less as...(a)...loss of dignity for the woman."

Source: National Crime Records Bureau data for 2017, Ministry of Home Affairs

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (2017), workplaces saw the least number of reported sexual harassment complaints, against those in public transport systems and women and child shelters. (See chart 2). Amongst cities, Delhi and Hyderabad had a higher number of such complaints registered. (See chart 3)

Another problem could be the Internal Complaint Committees (ICCs) themselves.  

“Victim blaming, insensitivity, lack of empathy during investigations; these tend to get whispered about thus deterring others from raising complaints," said Kalpana Tatavarti, founder for Parity Consulting and Training.

Under-reporting of sexual harassment cases does not stop at the company ICC level, as data available for the complaints sent to Women and Child Development ministry’s 'She-Box' shows a similar trend. According to a July reply filed with the Rajya Sabha, the 'She-Box' received a total of 612 complaints across India, of which only 313 were from private organisations. 'She-Box' is a single window access for women to complaint and once submitted it is directly sent to the concerned authority for action.

The past year did see some efforts from a few Indian companies to make workplaces safer for women. Anand Mahindra, chairman for Mahindra Group for instance took to Twitter in October to convey the group has a zero-tolerance for any form of sexual harassment. More corporates opening a healthy dialogue around diversity, inclusion and discrimination could; experts believe, result in a safer place in future for all vulnerable employee groups including persons with disabilities, women and contract employees. 

Source: National Crime Records Bureau data for 2017, Ministry of Home Affairs

 

This is part three of a four-part series on inclusion and India Inc. The final part will deal with contract employees.