The Government of India (GoI) has enacted the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act (the SH Act), 2013 with the objective to create a safe and secure workplace for women free from sexual harassment. This Act caters to women working both in organised and unorganised sector and establishes a redressal mechanism for the disposal of their complaints.
This Act is unique in its broad coverage which includes all women irrespective of their work status, whether working in organised or unorganised, public or private sectors, regardless of hierarchy. The domestic workers are also included within its ambit.
It defines “sexual harassment at the workplace” in a comprehensive manner, to cover circumstances of implied or explicit promise or threat to a woman’s employment prospects or creation of hostile work environment or humiliating treatment, which can affect her health or safety. For details, kindly read the FAQ uploaded on the portal.
This Sexual Harassment electronic Box (SHe-Box) is an effort of GoI to provide a single window access to every woman, irrespective of her work status, whether working in organised or unorganised, private or public sector, to facilitate the registration of complaint related to sexual harassment. Any woman facing sexual harassment at workplace can register their complaint through this portal. Once a complaint is submitted to the ‘SHe-Box’, it will be directly sent to the concerned authority having jurisdiction to take action into the matter.
For Registering Complaints Related to Sexual Harassment at Workplace
For registering complaints through the SHe-Box, a valid email id is required. The registration of complaint through SHe-Box is very easy. To register complaint, please click on the tab Register Your Complaint as shown on the screen. The next screen will ask information about the nature of office where alleged act(s) of sexual harassment took place (Government/Private); choosing the right tab will open a complaint registration form. After filling all the necessary details, kindly click on the submit tab for its submission. Once the complaint is submitted, a confirmation message, is sent to your email id (mentioned in the complaint form) containing a link through which you can use your email id as userid for the account created on SHe-Box and ,generate a password to view the status of the complaint from time to time. For details regarding registration process, kindly read the User Manual uploaded on the website.
Repository of Resources on the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
The Resources Section of the SHe-Box contain detailed information on the issue of sexual harassment of women at workplace. It contains the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 along with Rules framed thereunder both in Hindi and English language. The repository also features a Handbook which provides information about the SH Act in an easy to use practical manner along with a training module to build capacity of government officials around the provisions of the SH Act. This module could be customised by the private organisations as per their extant service rules. Further, for government officials the repository contains all the advisories/OM/guidelines issues by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). All these documents could be viewed online or downloaded free of cost. The repository also contains videos on the issue which could be utilised for building awareness around the SH Act.
Empanelled Institutes/Resource Persons
To ensure safety and security of women at all workplaces, WCD is empanelling institutions/organisations willing to conduct awareness raising exercises around the provisions of the SH Act. In the first round, 29 institutes/organisations were selected and empanelled vide notification dated 16th February 2017 (the list could be viewed in the Resource Section). Recently, to widen the outreach of the organisations/institutes working in various parts of the country, WCD has invited fresh proposals from the organisations, both public and private, conducting training programs/workshops on SH Act through an advertisement dated 31.08.2017 published both in Hindi and English daily newspapers in a requisite proforma. Out of the huge number which applied, 112 are selected (both from new and old notification). The list of the same is uploaded in the SHe-Box. These empanelled institute has to submit quarterly reports through SHe-Box of all the training programs/workshop conducted by them under the SH Act.
Further, WCD is planning to advertise for people willing to provide service as Resource Persons for the purposes of SH Act. The form to empanel as Resource Person will be soon uploaded under the ‘Join Us’ tab of the SHe-Box through which those willing to be empanelled may apply.