A major deliverable in Year 2 was to form Local Committees and strengthen the system to ensure implementation of the Sexual Harassment at workplace Law, 2013. There was no information available about the local committees on any direct source. With the help of information generated through Right to Information Act, we learnt that the committees in all the three districts have been constituted but there was no information available about the South East Delhi and Faridabad Committee members.
To get these details and to discuss the status of the Local Committe, we sought an appointment with the District Magistrate of South East Delhi, who is the mandated authority as per the SHW Act to implement the Act across the district. This was 17th November 2017. The District Magistrate was too busy to meet us, but his secretary gave us a copy of the official notification. Armed with this information we began our search of the Local Committee members. We called the organizations where these members were employed and visited their offices. Finally we managed to talk with 2 members, one of whom was the chairperson of the committee. The third member (from department of women and child) had been transferred out of the district, and no replacement had been found. One member remained untraceable.
The chairperson, Bharati Sharma, was candid – she was aware of the SHW Act but was unclear about her responsibility as chairperson of the committee. She was under the impression the District Magistrate would seek her out, if he was asked to investigate a case of sexual harassment.
If it took more than 6 months for a development practitioner who is well aware of the law and the system to locate a Local Committee in one district, can you imagine how difficult it will be for domestic workers or any informal sector worker who wants to file a complaint of sexual harassment with the committee? This is the situation on the ground after five years of passing and implementation of the historic law on sexual harassment at workplace.
The Local Committee as per the Act is a standing committee in the district. It is supposed to ensure the safety of women in the whole district. They need to organise awareness drives; they should be visible and available to support for any woman who seeks redressal under the Act. It is also the responsibility of the district authority to organise trainings for the committee and support the committee in the work.
The members were clearly unaware of their role and responsibilities as the Local Committee. After few rounds of individual meetings, we were able to convince all the members to sit together for one meeting. It had taken us 4 months of concerted efforts to reach this point. The Local Committee had been constituted one and a half years ago, but the members had never met!
With the efforts of the chairperson of the committee Ms. Bharti Sharma, a meeting with the District Magistrate was organized in March 2018. In this meeting, the District Magistrate realized and accepted the need to reconstitute the committee and asked the chairperson to organise trainings. In May 2018, orientation meetings were organized with all the members of the committee. In the same month, capacity building workshops were organized to prepare existing members, nodal officers and officers from women and child development department of Delhi Government to gain understanding of sexual harassment, its impacts and their roles and responsibilities as per the provisions of the law.
“What is harassment, sexual harassment, its forms, the law and what a woman can do if she is facing sexual harassment at workplace, the procedure to take the legal route—we learnt everything in this workshop through participatory methodology. We all got an opportunity to question our own mindsets and be sensitive towards the issue. It was a wonderful learning experience.” --Dr. Bharti Sharma, Chairperson, Local Committee, District of South East Delhi
The reconstituted Local Committee formed in the district of South East Delhi with support from the project is moving towards more meaningful compliance and setting up a model for other districts to replicate. The committee decided that it was important to extend this information and knowledge to the women who belong to the informal work sector. They decided to reach these women by involving frontline health workers (anganwadi workers) who are engaged with the department of women and child development.
A training of 60 frontline workers was organised to spread awareness across the district of South East Delhi. Soon after the training, these workers organised their own training in the field and trained 600 more workers on prevention of sexual harassment at workplace.