#MeToo: The road ahead

Social media campaigns such as #MeToo and #Times Up break new ground every time a sexual harassment survivor feels vindicated. A spate of chilling accounts by survivors in the last few days alone from high profile sections of the society has left most of the people distraught and furious. While these campaigns have been successful in amping up social awareness, boosting the morale of those involved and emboldening thousands of women to come forward and speak up against their perpetrators, they also tend to be limited to naming and shaming. The social media trials view this as an end in itself, instead of looking at this as a means to an end. There is nothing necessarily wrong in quick victories, but does it deter sex pests and change their fetid mentalities?

While it is completely in the purview of the survivors to decide their course and means of acquiring justice, there are some lawyers who are coming together to open the doors of the legal system as a way. In a tweet, the Delhi-based advocate Veera Mahuli and Rutuja Shinde, a practicing lawyer at the Bombay High court offered pro bono services to people who have faced sexual harassment at the workplace.

She also says that in some cases, the accused might threaten to sue for defamation, “So, in that case, they (survivors) shouldn’t feel threatened or pressurised to take their words back. I just wanted to give them assistance as to what they can do in such cases.” 

Dealing with workplace harassment
In cases of workspaces, Rutuja reminds us of the functional Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, under which every workplace must constitute this redressal committee for sexual offenses. Tanushree Datta and the survivors of the Utsav Chakraborty and Vikas Bahl cases were helpless owing to the unorganised working environment and lack of redressal structures like ICC. For Veena Gowda, who is a women’s rights lawyer from Mumbai, believes that the lackadaisical approach in the unorganised sectors and the lack of awareness is why harassment cases are rampant in such fields of work. For the uninitiated, one can lodge complaints of sexual harassment with the government set up LCC, if the workplace is unorganised (including household) or organisations do not have a sexual harassment committee in place. However, under the criminal law, the aggrieved can also file an FIR and subsequently press charges under Sec 354A of the IPC. And in the case of cyber offences, one can press charges under section 67A of the IT Act.

Policies in place
While one option is the legal framework; the other is evidently just to shake up the culture. Hence, Veena believes there is no disgrace attached in naming and shaming and it is important to disempower the perpetrator. She gives a rather strong insight when she explains, “When Jyoti Singh’s mother said that you could use my daughter’s name, it is because shame doesn’t come from her. The shame has to be shifted from us to them. When you say naming and shaming, we have been shamed so much, the churning has happened, and it’s changed the wave.” In addition to the above redressal mechanisms, Veena suggests that the problem is nipped in the bud itself by including stringent zero-tolerance policies in the work contract. “When they (employers) give you the contract, they mention that they want to protect your intellectual property  the ideas you can’t share. Why can’t they make zero tolerance for sexual harassment a part of your contract? ” She questions.

Behind the screen
Besides workplaces, the cyberspace has also become a breeding ground for sexual predators, mainly because, as Nirali Bhatia, a cyber and clinical psychologist says it feeds the “disinhibition effect”. In cyberspaces, women are hounded by various men right from their classmates, strangers from dating sites, Internet stalkers, men asking for nudes and sending them unsolicited pictures of their genitals to those making derogatory sexual remarks. Nirali explains why such cases are rampant online and says, “It’s basically that you are communicating with the screen, there is no individual on the other side. You don’t get any cues in terms of whether they are comfortable or getting embarrassed or are angry. One can go on doing everything that they want to do because the cyberspace is all about them, never about the person on the other hand”. While taking a legal action can exact justice, the discourse of mental trauma faced by the survivor gets drowned out. It is in such cases that professionals like Nirali step in to provide therapy, to both the survivor and the accused.