Why India Inc. needs to protect Men against Sexual Harassment at Workplaces in India- case for gender neutral policies
In May 2017, Vijay Nair, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur and founder of Only Much Louder (OML) shared his account of being sexually harassed in an article on the Huffington Post. The ordeal faced by him for months started with someone anonymously posting a sexually explicit tweet on his Twitter profile. What followed were a series of sexually explicit messages over WhatsApp and Email. When Nair unmakes the identity of his stalker, it was discovered that the stalked was a woman who Mr. Nair was acquainted with. This is not a lone incident of a man being sexually harassed by a woman.
India currently has no legal framework where a woman can be prosecuted for committing sexual offences against man. Indian law against sexual harassment protects only women. Meanwhile, Gender Neutral laws have found acceptance in 77 countries including Denmark, Australia, Switzerland, the U.S, the U.K etc. There is a disbelief surrounding sexual harassment of men which can perhaps can be attributed to absence of data. It is almost as if the idea that woman can sexually harass men is still considered inconceivable in society. The 2010 Economic Times-Synovate survey, 19% of the 527 men surveyed in several metros of the country claimed they had faced sexual harassment. According to the survey, 51% of the 527 men surveyed in several metros of the country claimed that they had faced sexual harassment at work. A similar conducted by the Company for Viacom 18 in 2013 found that 43 per cent of male corporate professionals were subjected to sexual advances by colleagues.
Why does Sexual Harassment against men remain unreported?
There are no exact statistics of how many men are sexually harassed at work, and how many of these men file claims for sexual harassment. This is because of a lack of complaints. A few probable reasons why men may not complain are –
- Men may be afraid of being mocked by co-workers. They may be emasculated for not being a ‘mard’.
- They may believe that men can’t be truly be sexually harassed by a woman, or that being harassed by another man implicates their own sexuality.
- They may fear being embarrassed if details of the harassment were leaked.
The problem of not acknowledging and recognizing male sexual harassment is perhaps because of men not accepting that they are vulnerable as well. Men may find it difficult to acknowledge sexual harassment because them may feel they have been feminized as the Indian mentality is that feminine is the weaker gender.
It is important to understand that Sexual Harassment is neither about sex or gender. It is only about power. But in the current day and age, with more women coming to powerful positions in the workplace, there is no reason why a woman in power cannot be as abusive as a man. It is hence very important to discuss the issue of rising incidents of crime against men in the public forum.
According to Indian law, modesty, if at all, exists only in women. The only form in which a wrong sexual advancement on a man is recognized as an offence is as sodomy under the Section 377 of the IPC. Apart from that there is no law to punish a person for molesting a man. This absence of law doesn’t stem from the absence of crime. As stated above, many males do face sexual harassment in the workplace, both at the hands of men and women.
In 2013, the Centre passed its stop-gap Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance on the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee, which substituted “sexual assault” for “rape” and made the crime gender-neutral from the aspect of both perpetrators and victim. However, the changes introduced in the Ordinance were reversed with the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act through active lobbying by Women’s Groups. They argued that Rape was an explicitly patriarchal crime. However, our definition of rape needs to progress from non-consensual penile-vaginal interactions to non-consensual penetrative-orifice interactions.
Are all laws specific to women?
It is not as if all laws in our country prohibiting Sexual Harassment are specific to women –
- The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 addresses sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of anyone below the age of 18, irrespective of their genders.
- The UGC Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, applicable to Higher Education Institutions is a gender-neutral law and recognizes that not only women, but men and people of the third gender are also vulnerable to many forms of sexual harassment, humiliation and exploitation.
With gender-neutral laws already in place, it is befuddling why the law applicable to workplaces, still does not identify women as perpetrators and men as victims.
A step in the right direction- gender neutral sexual harassment policies
However, India Inc. is slowly waking up to the fact that women are not the only victims of harassment in the workplace. Despite the law not mandating any recourse for males, Wipro Technologies has a gender-neutral Prevention of Sexual Harassment Committee (PSHC) that conducts an unbiased inquiry into each complaint. Infosys, Bangalore also boasts of a gender-neutral Internal Complaints Committee. While this is a step in the right decision, all men, and not just employees of these companies, deserve to be protected against any kind of sexual harassment. This is only possible through a legislation that makes Sexual Harassment Law in the Workplace gender neutral. Till then, more companies need to recognize the need for accepting complaints from men.
What can men facing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace do?
Male victims may also file complaints with the HR departments of their respective workplaces, and hold their ground for strict action against the perpetrators. While this cannot be equated to legal recourse, it is step towards ensuring that their ordeal stops. Similarly, organizations should take a progressive step and while implementing the Sexual Harassment at workplace Act, 2013 take note of not only building gender neutral policies but also include sensitization sessions on topics and incidents of sexual harassment against men in the workplace. Let us not forget that laws exist for guidance and not merely as a limitation.
Conclusion
During Ungender’s brainchild ‘Project Jagruk’, a sensitization and awareness drive regarding the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 conducted in Police Stations of South Delhi, many Police personnel wished to know if the act to applied to men as well. Many male victims of sexual harassment had approached them with complaints. When these police personnel were told that the act specifically applied only to women, they wished to know when men would also be protected from sexual harassment.
20 years ago, Indian legislation recognized Sexual Harassment of women only after the innocent Bhanwari Devi went through her ordeal. Will it take a similar incident concerning a man, for Indian legislation to recognize that men also face Sexual Harassment?
Author: This post has been submitted by Karan Arora , as part of his assignment with Ungender Insights. Karan Arora is currently a student of Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat.
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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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