Tuesday 9 May 2017

E-platform for govt staff soon to report sexual harassment

NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at strengthening the framework against sexual harassment at workplace, the ministry of women and child development is set to launch an e-platform this month to enable women employees of the central government to file their complaints in such cases online. It will be a reporting mechanism like the e-box for cases of sexual abuse of children.
The Union government has a strength of 30.87 lakh employees. According to the census of central government employees of 2011, women constitute 10.93% of the total force.
"We are going to launch an online platform where women can file sexual harassment-related complaints," Women and Child Development (WCD) Minister Maneka Gandhi told reporters on the sidelines of a workshop for capacity building of chairpersons of internal complaints committees of ministries and departments. The e-platform will be hosted on the WCD ministry's website.
"We hope our ICCs work in such a way that hopefully , we won't have the need for using such a platform to seek redressal. Also, we have had an e-box facility for the last one year for children to file complaints anonymously . We have received hundreds of cases through that," Maneka said.