Surge in Sexual Harassment Cases at Workplace in Indian top companies: Report
According to Forbes India data for FY22, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), information technology (IT), and IT-enabled services (ITeS) accounted for 69.5 percent of all sexual harassment complaints.
A great surge in Sexual Harassment Cases at Workplace in Indian corporates
The Posh Act of 2013 was introduced and implemented to prohibit workplace sexual harassment of women. It was outfitted with three mechanisms for preventing, prohibiting, and resolving sexual harassment in the workplace. However, even after two decades of posh law, businesses are still unable to resolve sexual harassment instances at work.
According to a Complykaro and ET article, there was a 31% increase in workplace sexual harassment complaints in FY23 against FY22, based on data from 370 BSE500 businesses.
IT (84%), financial services (27%), telecom (58%), manufacturing (50%) and metals (65%) also saw an increase in complaints.
According to Mint, the following companies have reported sexual harassment claims in the fiscal year 2023, with a surge in the previous fiscal year.
Wipro -141
Infosys -78
Tech Mahindra -74
HDFC Bank Ltd – 68
HCL Technologies – 55
Kotak Mahindra Bank – 55
Tata Consultancy Services – 49
State Bank of India- 46
Tata Steel Ltd- 38
Axis Bank Ltd- 34
Consider last year’s data, which revealed that these organizations reported 759 incidents in FY22, up from 595 in FY21.
According to Forbes India data for FY22, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), information technology (IT), and IT-enabled services (ITeS) accounted for 69.5 percent of all sexual harassment complaints.
Furthermore, additional segmentation revealed that IT/ITES accounted for 25.43 percent (193) of total cases in FY22. HDFC Bank received the most complaints in FY22, with 51, but these were only 8% higher than the previous year. ICICI Bank (46), Axis Bank (45), and Tech Mahindra (45) follow.
Among PSUs, the State Bank of India reported 43 complaints in FY22, a decrease from 45 the previous year.
Bank of Baroda reported 25 incidents in fiscal year 22. However, 16 cases were documented the prior year. In FY22, Indian Oil Corporation recorded nine, up from four in FY21.
In the fiscal year ending March 2022, the overall number of sexual harassment complaints at workplaces increased by 27% over the previous year.
The good news is that the number of sexual harassment complaints pending resolution at the end of FY22 was down by 2% from the previous year.
Complaints are increasing as a result of increased awareness, however most women who experience sexual harassment do not even register a complaint with the Internal Committee.
What exactly is the Posh Act?
The Act defines sexual harassment broadly, including any unwanted physical, verbal, or nonverbal behaviour of a sexual nature.
The Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH) Act was passed in 2013 to address the issue of workplace sexual harassment of women.
The Act applies to all Indian workplaces, including public and private organizations, government offices, non-governmental organizations, and any other place where women work.
Employer Obligation
Employers must take precautionary measures to provide a safe working environment. In firms with ten or more employees, an Internal Committee (IC) must be formed. A Local Committee (LC) will be formed at the district level for smaller groups.
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