Women Govt Staff Can Now File Sexual Harassment Plaints Online

The Women and Child Development ministry launched an online platform to enable women government employees to file complaints about sexual harassment at workplaces. The online complaint management system is called She-Box, which stands for sexual harassment electronic box. It can be accessed through the Women and Child Development ministry’s website.

Union minister Maneka Gandhi has launched this platform and promises to make it available to the private sector as well.

"We are also going to soon conduct a national survey to assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace,” she said.

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So once an employee submits a complaint, it will be sent to an internal complaints committee of the body concerned. The ICC will take action as prescribed under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act and will update the status of the complaint. Complainants can thus track the status of their complaints and remain in the know of the process. 

The portal aims to be as interactive as possible, Gandhi said, and aims to provide speedier remedies to women facing sexual harassment at work.

The government has 30.87 lakh women employees and they comprise only 10.93 per cent of its total workforce.

All workplaces with more than 10 employees must have an internal complaints committee for receiving complaints of sexual harassment. But many organisations aren't compliant with this rule and are yet to set up a functioning internal complaints committee.

The definition of what constitutes sexual harassment will also be made available on the portal. The government decided to host an online platform for sexual harassment cases in October last year after the minister received complaints from women employees in various ministries. Let's hope this initiative percolates to the private sector soon. 

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