BENGALURU: Sexual harassment can be devastating. Though some of the studies indicate that most harassment has nothing to do with flirtation or social interest, it’s a serious crime that is offensive, and often insulting to women.

According to the recent surveys conducted by Nimbuzz, a cross-platform mobile calling and messaging app, 47 percent of Indian women feel their top issue at work is sexual harassment vis-a-vis inequality in pay and unequal opportunities.

Well there are array of question like what are the remedies for this foolish act? Who is to be blamed for the situation–Women themselves, the patriarchal society, the western dresses and many other ones that come to our mind, but here are some facts that needs a good look.

According to the Nimbuzz—Pulse of the Nation report, it’s not just women, even men feel that sexual harassment is one of the common problems for working women. 51 percent of male colleagues feel that their female colleagues have faced sexual harassment in one way or the other.

Interestingly, the report claims that individuals who are committing this offence are now using innovative way to hit on their female colleagues—like forwarding flirtatious texts through WhatsApp, BBM among others. Using social media platforms such as Facebook to stalk female colleagues and this is a big issue.

However, Rinku Tyagi, a senior executive of the leading IT consulting firms, said, "Social media platforms have just come up, while sexual harassment has been a prevailing practice for decades. Yes, texts and social media platforms are being used, but verbal remarks and physical advances still take the cake when it comes to sexual harassment."

Another interesting prospect said that, 41 percent of women, who participated in the Nimbuzz survey, admitted that they fear speaking up against sexual harassment because of lack of confidence in the organization to take cognizance. But now the major point of concern is that almost 62 percent of people feel that sexual harassment happens by peers.

So, the question here is whether there is any way out? Well there sure is. Women only need to start raising their voices, and utilize the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, for their benefit. And the other aspect is that the organizations need to play important roles by setting up an effective grievance system, and educate women employees about legal actions that they can take against the culprit.
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