Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) will on Friday elect student representatives to the varsity’s 15-member gender panel set up to deal with complaints of sexual harassment within its precinct.
“Polling for electing two student members to Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) will begin at 10 am and counting of votes will be done in the evening. However, we will make the results public on Saturday,” said Dileep, a student who is also the election commissioner for the polls.
“There are seven candidates in fray, including one male student,” Dileep added. While BJP’s youth wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), has nominated Vasundhari Bharti and Sourabh Kumar, Geeta Kumari is the candidate for All India Students’ Association (AISA).
Other nominees include Students’ Federation of India’s (SFI) Salini lR, Democratic Students’ Federation’s (DSF) Aishwarya Adhikari, All India Students’ Federation’s (AISF) Rahila Perween and Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India’s (NSUI) Heena Goswami.
GSCASH was instituted by the university in 1999 under the Vishaka Guidelines of the Supreme Court. The panel, headed by a chairperson, has representatives from JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU), JNU Officers’ Association (JNUOA), hostel wardens, faculty and administrative staff.
The body has three major functions: Gender sensitisation and orientation, crisis management and mediation, and formal enquiry and redressal. Installation of sanitary pad dispensers and identification of third gender in the university admission forms are few among the many landmark changes brought in recent years by the GSCASH.