17% women face sexual harrassment at work place: Oxfam

One of the reasons stated for not taking any action is 'fear of losing the job'

Even as many cases of sexual harassment have been coming to the fore in the recent past, data on the cases have been sketchy or have had a narrow geographical or sectoral coverage.

According to a study by Oxfam India 17% of working women in the country feel that they have experienced acts of sexual harassment at their workplaces, indicating a high incidence of sexual harassment among working women from both among the organised and unorganised sectors.

The study titled ‘Sexual Harassment at Workplaces in India 2011-2012' was jointly conducted by Oxfam India and the Social and Rural Research Institute, a wing of IMRB International. The study done in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Durgapur also said that most women have faced incidents that were non-physical.

Some 66 of the 400 respondents, are reported to have faced 121 incidents of sexual harassment. 102 out of 121 incidents were reported to be non-physical, whereas the remaining 19 were physical in nature. While 87% of the general population and 93% of working women respondents reported awareness of sexual harassment of women at the work place, a majority of the victims did not resort to any formal action against the perpetrator.

“Violence against women is a human rights violation, whether it is domestic violence within homes or sexual harassment at the workplace. If the domestic sphere is not safe, the workplace is not safe, public spaces are not safe, then, where should women go?” says Nisha Agrawal, CEO, Oxfam India.

The top three industries that have emerged unsafe for women are labourers which accounts for 29%, followed by domestic help and small scale manufacturing which accounts for 23% and 16% respectively.

A majority of respondents perceived women working in the unorganised sector to be more susceptible to sexual harassment due to lack of awareness of legislation.

Interestingly, 26% reported to be the sole earning member of their families, indicating that economic vulnerability further makes women more vulnerable to harassment at the workplace.

"It is shocking that 17% of working women face sexual harassment in workplaces as per our study. Each one of us has to take a stand and say ‘No to Violence against Women," Nisha added.

Some of the reasons stated for not taking any action were ‘fear of losing the job’, ‘absence of any complaints mechanism at the workplace’, ‘fear of getting stigmatized’ and ‘not aware of redressal mechanism’.

Further the survey pointed that the Supreme Court (SC) guidelines on sexual harassment were known to as many as 17% of the respondents amongst the general population. It was found that awareness of the SC guidelines was higher in metro cities i.e. 24% as compared to other areas. Overall more than 80 percent of the respondents reported the need for a separate law for dealing with sexual harassment at work place.