National Level Consultative Workshop on the Implementation of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013 for Domestic Workers in India

Although they make up one of the world’s most long-standing and widespread workforce, domestic workers are frequently overworked, underpaid, and unprotected. Global estimates have established that domestic workers tend to have lower wages, fewer benefits, and hardly any legal or social protections. Very few domestic workers have labour contracts and have been confined to the informal economy. They usually have no access to pension, provident funds, maternity leave or health care. Since they work behind the closed doors of private households, domestic workers are shielded from public view and attention, and are often hard to reach by conventional policy tools (ILO 2013).

The extremely invisible and privatized nature of domestic work also makes domestic workers very vulnerable to sexual harassment at workplace (SHW). Their lack of education, low awareness about the law, fear of loss of livelihood and stigma associated with the issue exacerbates their vulnerability, deterring them from reporting this violence. Also, lack of adequate redressal mechanism, continued indifference from policy-makers, employers and trade unions further obscures the sexual harassment of domestic workers at their workplaces.

Ending Sexual Harassment: Making Institutions Accountable towards Women Workers in the Informal Sector is a collaborative effort of the Martha Farrell Foundation (MFF), PRIA and Embassy of Netherlands in India. It aims to enable safe, secure and dignified workplaces for women domestic workers. For the past three years, the project has been working with domestic workers in Gurgaon, Faridabad and South Delhi to collectivize them and build their capacities around the issue of sexual harassment at workplace. The work has also been focusing on strengthening redressal mechanisms and preventive measures, where it has been working closely with District Administration, unions and civil society organizations to mainstream the issues of sexual harassment of domestic workers.

This National Level Consultative Workshop on the Implementation of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013 for Domestic Workers in India is organised as part of the project. It aims to understand the status of implementation of Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 in various states of India, various challenges towards its effective implementation and bring out best practices to overcome these challenges to ensure meaningful country-wide compliance of the law. It is envisaged that the proposed consultation will bring together a country-wide multi-stakeholder dialogue for enabling safe and dignified workplaces for women workers in the informal sector through policy reforms and implementation of the 2013 law.

Programme:
Day 1 – 26th July 2019
Venue – PRIA Conference Hall

Day 2 – 27th July 2019
Venue – Constitution Club of India, New Delhi