POSH This Week: Are Women In Legal Profession Shattering The Glass Ceiling?
Written by: Rituparna Chatterjee
Every week we bring you a roundup of news and opinion on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, popularly called the POSH Act, from Indian media, focusing on workplace sexual harassment and its far-reaching effect on equality, equity and mental health of employees of diverse gender identities.
Here are five reported stories on POSH in the week of November 30, 2020:
This week, Hon’ble Justice Gita Mittal, Chief Justice, High Court of Jammu & Kashmir, threw some light during her Keynote Address in the Constitution Day Forum on the glass ceiling that still exists in the legal profession.
“Out of the 673 sitting Judges of the High Courts in India, only 73 are women. I happen to be the only Chief Justice amongst the 28 High Courts of India. In the 70 years since the Supreme Court was established, only 8 women have been appointed as judges. Currently out of the 30 Judges at the Supreme Court, only two are women. In its over five decades of existence the designation of women as senior advocates in the Supreme Court is also deplorable,” she said. Sexual harassment is a key element that contributes towards this discrimination against women.
The Prajnya Trust released a report on gender-related crimes across the country, including the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on gender violence, titled ‘Gender Violence in India 2020’.
They found that five Indian states — Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — have reported the bulk of the crimes committed against women in the country in 2019. The report compared data of various crimes against women over the years, including rape, sexual abuse, cyber crime, workplace harassment and more.
The Government of the Union Territory of Ladakh have constituted a committee to keep check on complaints regarding sexual harassment at workplace. As per order issued by the Commissioner/Secretary, General Administration Department, Ladakh, Ajeet Kumar Sahu, Compliant Committee has been constituted under Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.
While the Government recently formed the Complaint Committee to handle sexual harassment complaints in the Health & Medical Education (H&ME) Department, no such committee has been so far formed to handle such complaints in the private hospitals of Kashmir, reports the Daily Excelsior.
Vandit Jain writes about the The Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) and the multiple cultural and religious barriers for women to get into the labour force. “The most obvious question to ask here is why is India’s FLFPR dropping and why it is not on par with China which stands at 60 per cent FLFPR. And why is a country like Bangladesh with similar socio-economic realities, doing better than India?”
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The above insights are a product of our learning from our advisory work at Ungender. Our Team specialises in advising workplaces on gender centric laws.
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