INBA’s 2nd edition of Sexual Harassment Survey-2018
“INBA’S country wide research project on the topic of Sexual Harassment”
The Indian National Bar Association continues to work in their quest to build an India, which is inclusive of the identity of modern Indian women. We seek to construct a country which is friendly towards women. With this idea, 2017 was the most active year at INBA, where our student volunteers worked tirelessly in order to survey about the ground realities of sexual harassment of women at work places. The statistics of women harassment cases were unbelievably steep and it was shocking to know that over 68% victims simply do not report their harassments due to the fear of consequences at work places.
We tend to pride ourselves in having a democracy with a constitution seeking to liberate and empower everyone. And yet, surveys as the one of INBA on sexual harassment at work places expose the long path that we still need to walk in order to find our destination of collective gender empowerment.
The project report of the Indian National Bar Association, called ‘Garima’, conducted surveys nationally since October 2016. The initiative, reached out to over 6, 047 people, of which, 78% were women, working in sectors such as BPOs, IT, education, legal and hospitality. The interviews were conducted in over ten cities in India, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune.
Over 38% women claimed to have faced sexual harassment at workplace, while 50.7 percent said that they had been targets of harassment online.
Our endeavour has not remained limited to data collection. Instead, INBA has played a very important role in bringing awareness amongst genders about their rights against harassment and has sought to understand the legal provisions critically. INBA has constantly initiated the gender conversation intersectionally and brought suggestions to improve the cross sectional relationship amongst genders.
In the year 2018, we look forward to continuing our project to make a difference. We shall further expand our surveys to every section of the society, as we move out of the workplace environment. We intend to conduct surveys in schools, colleges, streets and neighbourhoods, alongside workplaces.
Join us, as we move to build a better India that is inclusive of every member of the society, particularly women.