MHA issues new directives for harassment complaints in forces

The Union Home Ministry has issued a set of new directives to paramilitary forces, where the number of women combatant is close to 9,000, for getting regular monthly updates on sexual harrasment cases in their formations nationwide.
The Ministry has asked three border guarding forces-- BSF, ITBP and SSB, and three others CRPF, CISF and NSG to inform it on monthly basis about these incidents in a new eight-point format.
The format, accessed by PTI, specifically asks for the "gist of allegations", the present status of the case and the reasons if there are any pendencies in issuing final orders with regard to a complaint.

The Ministry has also asked that it should be informed about occurence of such instances right from the company (100 personnel), battalion (1,000 personnel), sector (5,000 about personnel) and frontier (more than 5,000 personnel) level.
"All the paramilitary forces now have women combatants and their numbers are increasing every day. In order to streamline the process of complaints with regard to sexual harrasment cases, the Home Ministry issued the new directions sometime back," a senior official said.
The present strength of women in 'khaki' is close to 9,000 while female employees constitute few more thousands in their administrative setup of these forces deployed not only for border security tasks but also for rendering internal security duties.

The internal setup, for probing cases of sexual harassment, in these forces has a woman officer heading the inquiry committee under the provisions of Vishakha guidelines ordered by the Supreme Court.