POSH Act

Recently, the Kerala High Court directed organisations associated with the film industry to take a step against sexual harassment and get aligned and form a committee as per mandated by the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act or POSH Act, 2013.

About POSH Act: It came into force on December 9, 2013, and is framed to provide protection to women at the workplace against sexual harassment.

• The Act further lays down rules for the prevention and redressal of sexual harassment complaints by female workers.
• The Act is an extension of Vishakha Guidelines, 1997, introduced by the Supreme Court which had laid down guidelines for dealing with sexual harassment at workplace, pending formal legislation.

Loopholes in the Act: While the law accomplishes that goal admirably in several different ways, confidentiality has been a critical element which has often been overlooked especially at the time of litigation.

• Another major flaw which has been systematically pointed out is that it should be gender neutral. It does not provide for the protection of male employees in the workplace. In fact, the vast majority of the attendees were found to be women.
• Concerns have been raised from the perspective of implementation and compliance. Most of the unorganised workspaces do not have an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in place. There is no awareness among the employees that they can file a complaint under the POSH Act. Even companies of the organised sector do not have an ICC in place.