16 April 2014
As provided in the Supreme Court guidelines (Vishakha & Ors vs. State of Rajasthan)1, sexual harassment includes such unwelcome sexually determined behaviour as: Physical contact, a demand or request for sexual favour, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography, any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature, for example, leering, telling dirty jokes, making sexual remarks about a person’s body, etc.
It moves into the harassment domain when it is not consensual. Sexual harassment is commonly called sexual abuse too. Since there were just the guidelines dealing with the issue, thus, an Act was passed namely “The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013”.
