Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi on Thursday urged all political parties to start internal complaints committee to register cases of sexual harassment.
Maneka was responding in the backdrop of the MeToo movement stating that the women should be provided with a more conducive atmosphere.
Maneka said that she wrote to presidents of six national parties and 59 regional parties urging to form ICC.
I wrote to every political party president,requesting them to start internal complaints committee.I think there are 6 national parties&about 90 smaller parties. It’s an office,hundreds of women work there&I expect a more condusive atmosphere for them: Union Minister Maneka Gandhi pic.twitter.com/97viAGk0cy
— ANI (@ANI) October 18, 2018
“We are trying to get to every single form of harassment that is being experienced by women at workplace,” Maneka told PTI.
“I have written to chiefs of political parties to form Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), which should have already been there under the law. When we are asking every organisation to have an internal complaints committee, why should we exempt political parties from it,” she said.
Section 4 of the Sexual Harassment at Work Place (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act mandates every organisation which employs women to constitute an internal complaints committee which is to be headed by a senior women employee.
The Minister had earlier also written to all Bollywood production houses to form an ICC, following which about seven of them had formed such committees.
Allegations of sexual harassment against prominent people in various fields have come to light under India’s online “#MeToo” movement, which started with actor Tanushree Dutta accusing fellow actor — Nana Patekar — of harassing her during the shooting of a Bollywood film in 2008.
M J Akbar, who resigned as the Minister of State for External Affairs Wednesday, filmmakers Subhash Ghai, Sajid Khan, Rajat Kapoor and actor Alok Nath are among those who have been accused of sexual misconduct. They have denied the allegations.
(With Agency Inputs)
Source: Zee News