Anti Sexual Harassment Cell

Anti-Sexual Harassment Cell

​

Policy Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace

​

The document was drafted by the working Committee on the policy against sexual harassment at the workplace.

​

Preamble

The Parliament of India passed the "Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act," in the year 2013. The ACT provides protection against sexual harassment at work place and for the prevention and redressal of complaints of sexual harassment.

The guidelines state that

"It shall be the duty of the employer or other responsible persons in workplaces to prevent the sexual harassment and to provide the procedures for solutions, settlement, or prosecution of acts, of sexual harassment by taking all steps require."

​

Commitment

Educational institutions are bound by the Supreme Court's directive and Swami Vivekananda College of Education is committed to create and maintain a safe and secure environment which is free of gender violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination on the basis of sex/ gender for all its employees at workplace. College will operate zero tolerance policy for any form of sexual harassment in the work place.

​

Sexual Harassment

According to THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT THE WORK PLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT 2013, sexual harassment includes any one or series of the following unwelcome acts or behaviour (whether directly or by implication committed in person/ on print or via computer/phone/other media) namely:

1. Physical contact e.g., touching, pinching and sexual advances; or

2. A demand or request for sexual favours as a condition of continued employment, job status, promotion, salary increment or career development; or showing pornography or posting sexual pranks

3. Any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non- verbal conduct of sexual nature; or

4.Physical conduct such as loaded comments, remarks or jokes, letters, phone calls, SMS, MMS or e-mails; or

5. Making obscene/ sexually coloured remarks or remarks of a sexual nature about a person's clothing or body; or

6. Stalking, whistling, and leering, jurisdiction

The policy and the rules & regulations would apply to all members of college students, faculty and non-teaching staff. The policy would also apply on all of the campus.

In the above the following definitions will apply-

l)Members- include faculty (permanent and temporary), staff (permanent and temporary), research scholars /students (full time and part time) and any other visitors.

2) Faculty-refers to a person or the staff of the Institute who is appointed to a faculty position, whether full time I temporarily ad-hoc /part-time /visiting /honorary.

3) Staff- refers to any person in the Institute who is not included in the category of faculty. It shall also include contract workers and daily wagers.

4) Students- Includes All the students of B.Ed.

5) Campus refers to all places of work and residence. It includes all administrative section, academic section, library & computer centre, project offices as well as hostel & mess, guest house, staff quarters, security cabin and public places, etc.

In order to implement the policy, a Committee shall be appointed would be as described below.

​

Internal Complaint Committee

​

To prevent sexual harassment and to receive and deal with complaints. Internal Complaint Committee have been appointed. The committee comprises of

l. Chairman- A woman employed at a senior level in the organisation at workplace

2. Two members from teaching faculty and one member from non-teaching staff.

3. Two students one from UG and one from PG.

​

INTERNAL COMPLAINT COMMITTEE

​

1. Mr. Subrata Kumar Biswas – Chairman, SVCE

Duties of the Committee-

1. To safeguard the rights of female students and female staff members to protect against any sort of violence against them.

2. To provide platform for listening to complaints and redressal of grievances.

3. To ensure personality along with academic development of students.

4. To make them aware of their rights.

5. The woman teacher and committee members are advised to put their problems in writing in the suggestion/ complaint box.

6. To aware sexual harassment act.

7. As per the recommendations of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act 2013 and UGC (Prevention, prohibition, and redressal of sexual harassment of women employees and students in higher educational institutions) Act 2015, the college constitutes an Internal Complaints Committee as per statutory rules. As per the guidelines given in the 6.4 section of the Saksham Book, the college avails of all possible resources to ensure the functioning of the Internal Complaints Committee. The Gender Sensitisation Committee works in tandem with the ICC to ensure healthy methods of preventing, sensitising and combating issues related to sexual harassment in the workplace.

8. The committee also comprises three students who are enrolled at the undergraduate level. On matters pertaining to students, the student representatives are also involved in the process. The student members are elected through a transparent democratic procedure.

9. The Internal Complaints Committee of the college responds to the harassment complaints, if any, with promptness and the process of redressal maintains confidentiality to ensure the comfort and safety of the complainant.

10. To meet its goal of gender amity the college conducts workshops and gender sensitisation campaigns at frequent intervals to engage with the gender identity discourse and questions of alternate sexuality to bridge the gap between theory and praxis. This helps in creating awareness about vulnerability, exploitation and inequality and simultaneously formulating measures to counter the same.

 

Mechanism of Redressal of sexual harassment cases as per the guidelines ofSexual Harassment at workplace (prevention, prohibition and redressal)Act 2013

In pursuance of the Sexual Harassment Act in April 2013

1) Any aggrieved woman employee or student can make a complaint inwriting to the ICC within a period 3 months from the date of incident andin case of a series of incidents, within a period of three months from thedate of last incident. (Sexual harassment at work place includesunwelcome acts or behaviour.)

2) If she is unable to make a complaint in writing, the ICC shall render all possibleassistance to her for making the complaint in writing.

3) If the ICC is satisfied that the circumstances were such, which prevented the woman from filing a complaint within a period of 3 months it may extend the time limit not exceeding three months.

4) Within the period of Five working daysfrom the date of such communication of complaint, the chair person shall call a meeting to discuss the matter.

5) The aggrieved woman and the offender shall be responsible for presenting their witness before the committee.