Over 400 cases of sexual harassment at work logged every year since 2018

India has seen over 400 cases of sexual harassment at work every year since 2018, with an average of 445 cases being reported yearly, according to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data.
 

Over 419 cases, or about 35 per month, were reported in the country in 2022, the latest year for which data is available.
 

That year Himachal Pradesh recorded the highest number of sexual harassment cases at the workplace (97), followed by Kerala (83), Maharashtra (46), and Karnataka (43). West Bengal, which is seeing protests after the alleged rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s R G Kar Hospital, did not figure among the list of five states that reported the highest number of cases of sexual harassment at offices and workplaces. The state logged one such case that year.

 

This comes against the backdrop of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act), which was enacted more than a decade ago to safeguard women and provide mechanisms for addressing sexual harassment.  
 

In FY23, companies reported 1,160 sexual harassment complaints, the highest number in the past decade. However, only slightly more than half these cases were resolved, according to data from the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis, Ashoka University.

The data covered a sample of 300 companies, including 100 with the highest market capitalisation (rank 1 to 100), 100 in the middle range (rank 957 to 1,056), and 100 ranked between 1,914 and 2,013 on the NSE.
 

Meanwhile, the financial year ended March 31, 2023 (FY23) saw 202 pending cases. The lower number of pending cases compared to the difference between reported and resolved cases is attributed to factors such as complainants withdrawing their complaint applications, or the complainant or the accused leaving the company, the database noted.
 

On average, 49 sexual harassment cases were reported every day in 2022, according to NCRB.