Committee of senior judges, legal experts will look into issues, says Maneka
With #MeToo campaign in India gaining momentum, the Government on Friday stepped in promising to set up a high-level panel to look into all issues related to sexual assaults in the workplace.
Supporting the #MeToo movement, which has encouraged countless women to share their stories of sexual harassment, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said her Ministry will soon propose a panel with senior judicial and legal persons as members to look into all issues surfacing from the campaign.
Maneka’s comments came a day after her colleague Textiles Minister Smriti Irani urged people not to mock women speaking out against the harassment meted out to them. “That is my only appeal to everybody who is witnessing this surge of outpouring of emotion, of anger on the internet and offline also,” she had said in Mumbai. However, senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj has chosen to remain silent on the issue despite being repeatedly asked for her comments.
Maneka said she believes in all the women who have come out with complaints of sexual harassment. More women should come out and address the issue of sexual harassment and narrate their experiences, Maneka said.
“I believe in all of them. I believe in the pain and trauma behind every single complainant,” she told PTI in an interview. Maneka did not comment on the allegations of sexual harassment against her colleague MJ Akbar, who has been accused by several former women colleagues of sexual harassment when he served as editor at various media organisations. Union Minister Akbar, film director Sajid Khan and actor Alok Nath are among those accused of sexual misconduct.
“I am proposing to set up a committee with senior judicial and legal persons as members to look into all issues emanating from the #MeToo campaign,” Maneka said.
The committee will look into the legal and institutional framework in place for handling complaints of sexual harassment, including some of the complaints if required, and advise the Ministry on how to strengthen these, the WCD Minister said.
“It takes a lot for women to come out like this. These cases have been elephants in the rooms for the last 25 years. The question here is how can they prove these after all these years... they have faced verbal assault, they have been touched, pinched, their clothes have been pulled ... The first thing to do is naming and shaming these monsters. Naming and shaming will go a long way in lessening the pain these women have been carrying,” she said.
Urging women to come out with their stories, Maneka said men who sexually harass women depend on them to be shamed into keeping quiet. She said her Ministry has created a woman friendly environment in which they can complain to her directly. Even anonymous complaints will be addressed. Maneka said women could complain through the she box (shebox.nic.in), which provides a single window access to every woman, irrespective of her work status to register complaints related to sexual harassment. Complaints can also be lodged at min-wcd@nic.in, she said.
All the cases will be closely monitored by the Ministry. “Regarding taking action against those that are in office, I am really hopeful that the system will react because I believe that these complaints are true,” she said.
According to the Minister, protecting women has been the watchword of the present Government with the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign being one of its flagship schemes.
In an official statement, the Union Minister said in order to ensure harassment-free workplaces covering all (all ages, full-time, part-time, public and private sector, organised or unorganised sectors, etc, including domestic workers, students, apprentices, and even the women visiting an office), the Government has put in place an effective legal and institutional framework in place through the “sexual harassment at women at workplace (prevention, prohibition and redressal) Act” 2013.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday served a notice against Madhya Pradesh High Court judge after a former woman judge’s plea to reinstate her. The top court agreed to hear the case against the judge after six weeks. The former woman judge had quit her job alleging sexual harassment by the then Madhya Pradesh High Court judge, who has retired since then.