Plan to revive panel on sexual harassment

COIMBATORE: The district administration is all set to revive the local complaints committee (LCC), that was formed based on the Vishaka guidelines, to address sexual harassment of women at workplace.
A complaint box will be placed at a prominent place inside the collectorate on Monday, collector K Rajamani, who called a meeting with the officials, said. “We plan to revive the committee,” he said.
Referring to the anonymous complaints the administration had received, the collector said that not just the working women, anyone can deposit complaint letters in the box.“Even anonymous letters will be taken up for inquiry.”
As per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, government departments, private companies and educational institutions that have more than 10 women employees, should have internal complaint committee (ICC). A district-level committee called LCC should be formed to monitor them.
While ICCs should have three members with a woman employee as its head, the district-level committee should consist of five members – collector, district social welfare officer (DSWO), two representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and an advocate.
TOI had earlier reported that the committee had not received even a single complaint even though it was formed in 2014.
An official from the committee said that even though more than 75% of the government departments and a few private companies had formed the committees and submitted quarterly reports, not even a complaint was registered through the committee. “We had investigated a couple of sexual harassment complaints. But they were addressed directly to the collector and not to the committee,” the official said.