POCSO Committee

POCSO Committee

Sl. No	Name	Position
01	Mrs.  Neel Ambika	President
02	Mrs. Mahadevi	Secretary
03	Mrs. Laxmi S	Member
04	Mr. Santosh Kumar Patil	Member
05	Mr. Ajaykumar	Member
06	Mr.  Sunil Shinde	Member
07	Mrs. Suchismitha	Member
09	Kumari  Akshata	Student Member
10	Master. Gurukiran	Student Member

What is sexual harassment

Sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behavior (whether directly or by implication) as:

a) physical contact and advances; b) a demand or request for sexual favors; c) sexually colored remarks; d) showing pornography; e) any other unwelcome physical verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature.

It is discriminatory for instance when the woman has reasonable grounds to believe that her objection would disadvantage her in connection with her employment or work including recruiting or promotion or when it creates a hostile work environment. Thus, sexual harassment need NOT involve physical contact. Any act that creates a hostile work environment – be it by virtue of cracking lewd jokes, verbal abuse, circulating lewd rumors etc. counts as sexual harassment.^[6]

The creation of a hostile work environment through unwelcome physical verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature may consist not of a single act but of pattern of behavior comprising many such acts.

Thus, it is important that the victim report such behavior as soon as possible and not wait for it to become worse. In some cases, the psychological stigma of reporting the conduct of a co-worker might require a great deal of courage on the part of the victim and they may report such acts after a long period. The guidelines suggest that the complaint mechanism should ensure time-bound treatment of complaints, but they do not suggest that a report can only be made within a short period of time since the incident occurred.

Forms of harassment relationships include:

• The perpetrator can be anyone, such as a client, a co-worker, a parent or legal guardian, relative, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.
• The victim does not have to be the person directly harassed but can be a witness of such behavior who finds the behavior offensive and is affected by it.
• The place of harassment occurrence may vary from school, university, workplace and other.
• The perpetrator may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful.^[3]
• The incident can take place in situations in which the harassed person may not be aware of or understand what is happening.
• The incident may be one time occurrence but more often it has a type of repetitiveness.
• Adverse effects on the target are common in the form of stress and social withdrawal, sleep and eating difficulties, overall health impairment, etc.
• The victim and perpetrator can be any gender.
• The perpetrator does not have to be of the opposite sex.
• The incident can result from a situation in which the perpetrator thinks they are making themselves clear, but is not understood the way they intended. The misunderstanding can either be reasonable or unreasonable. An example of unreasonable is when a woman holds a certain stereotypical view of a man such that she did not understand the man’s explicit message to stop

General Points

• Gender equality includes protection from sexual harassment and right to work with dignity as per our constitution.
• Extra hazard for a working woman compared her male colleague is clear violation of the fundamental rights of ‘Gender Equality’ & Right to Life and Liberty.
• Safe working environment is fundamental right of working woman.

• In no way working women may be discriminated at workplace against male employees. (If a woman is, then it must be documented in company policies, for example limitation of women in police and armed forces)
• Working with full dignity is the fundamental right of working women.
• The right to work as an inalienable right of all working women
• The right to protection of health and to safety in working conditions, including the safeguarding of the function of reproduction(pregnancy, maternity & nursing etc) is fundamental right of working women

The following can be termed as sexual harassment

• Anything at work that can place the working woman at disadvantage compared to other male employees in her official career just because she is a woman – can be termed as sexual harassment
• Unwelcome sexually determined behavior & demands from males employees at workplace:
  • any physical contacts and advances
  • sexually colored remarks
  • showing pornography
  • passing lewd comments or gestures
  • sexual demands by any means

Any rumors/talk at the workplace with sexually colored remarks about a working woman. Even spreading rumors about a woman’s sexual relationship with anybody.