A 12-year-old child was raped in New Delhi last week by a policeman. The news is bound to embarrass the higher authorities among the police and create a din for a few days: in this case the culprit was summarily dismissed from service. But the larger reality is that our laws and our society are ill-equipped to put an end to sexual harassment.

Of late, senior officials in the government as well as the private sector have been charged with sexual harassment. The crime knows no barriers. An allegation of such harassment levelled against Orissa Assembly Speaker by a woman marshal led to his resignation in March this year. The Speaker, understandably, termed the allegation baseless, claiming that it was the fallout of action taken to discipline employees. In September, 2004, a former Kerala minister, A Neelalohitadasan Nadar, was sentenced to one year in prison in a sexual assault case. This was the result of a complaint filed in 1999 by a divisional forest officer against the minister accusing him of attempting to molest her after summoning her to his room at a guest house on the pretext of an urgent meeting.

The most "celebrated" — for want of a better word — case of sexual harassment and molestation is the one involving K.P.S. Gill, former chief of the Punjab police. He was convicted of molesting a Punjab cadre IAS officer at a party in Chandigarh. In January 1998, a court found him guilty as charged and sentenced him to three months’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakhs. But the Supreme Court allowed his appeal and he was released under the Probation of Offenders Act. But he had to pay the fine. An inquiry conducted by the ministry of women and child welfare in 2007 found Unicef’s India chief guilty of sexual harassment. An Army court of inquiry has found a top armed forces official, a major-general, guilty of sexually harassing a subordinate woman officer, of the rank of captain.

According to one survey in India, a woman is sexually harassed every 51 minutes and molested every 26 minutes. Several studies indicate that the magnitude of unreported cases is several times over the estimate. A study by the Gender Study Group of Delhi University showed that 91.7 per cent of those living in women’s hostels and 88.2 per cent of all women day scholars had faced sexual harassment on the road and within campus.

The fact is that women hesitate to complain against superiors, not only out of fear of losing their job, but also out of a fear of losing face. There is always an element of doubt and disbelief against complaints made by women workers of whatever rank or position.

The Supreme Court has explicitly defined sexual harassment to include "such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour, (whether directly or by implication) as: physical contact and advances; a demand or request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks; showing pornography; any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature." The court has emphasised that this should be treated as law under Article 141 of the Constitution. That said, there is a growing need to define sexual harassment as a separate legal offence in our country with suitable penalties. We simply do not consider the malpractice grave enough to warrant a stringent law. Notable to add that France is the only country that has passed a criminal law related to sexual harassment. The law must take into account the fact that it is the impact of the behaviour on the recipient, rather than the intention of the perpetrator, which determines the reaction to sexual harassment. In actual practice, in the absence of witnesses or other concrete proof, it is the complainant’s word against the perpetrator’s, the complainant often at a weaker end.

While sexual harassment is a worldwide malpractice, an International Labour Organisation study of 23 countries found that 15 to 30 per cent of working women had been subjected to sexual harassment, which varied from explicit demands for sexual intercourse to offensive remarks. One out of 12 women surveyed had to quit her job. Some of them were dismissed. A study has found that 45 per cent of Czech women had been sexually harassed in the workplace, yet the real numbers are probably higher.

Statistics released by the Delhi Police in January 2008 has reinforced New Delhi’s image as a metro where women are unsafe. The reported molestation cases rose to an all-time high of 835, as against 713 in 2006. And this number may just be the tip of the iceberg, as a large number of cases go unreported. The conviction rate is abysmally low in molestation cases. So the accused walk free and are emboldened to repeat their act. The police admits that many victims shy away from coming to the police station. After last week’s incident, it doesn’t need much perception to understand why.

One of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s poems has the lines:

In every panchayat, Draupadi is robbed of her honour

Apt to add that she is not only dishonoured in panchayats but also in the city transport buses, in the streets and even in her own home.

There is one aspect to sexual harassment that is for women to take charge of. Women must shed their tolerance of sexually unwelcome behaviour. They must take resort to strong action the first time it occurs. If they allow even the most minor of offences to go unnoticed, the offender is likely to continue.

In case someone behaves with a woman in a manner that makes her uncomfortable, she should protest and complain loudly and immediately. This will discourage potential mischief-mongers.

Joginder Singh is a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/opinion/op-ed/sexual-harassment-needs-zero-tolerance.aspx

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