Law against sexual harassment to protect helps

Housemaids and domestic helps will be brought under the ambit of the proposed law to prevent exploitation...

Housemaids and domestic helps will be brought under the ambit of the proposed law to prevent exploitation of women at workplaces,the government said on Friday.

The legislation would also include Dalit women who come from rural areas to work as domestic helps in the cities,Women and Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath said in the Lok Sabha.

While the ministry has been working on the proposed law for the last year-and-a-half,it has now decided to bring both the organised and unorganised sectors under its purview. The unorganised sector will comprise labor class women including domestic helps and even women working at construction sites, Krishna Tirath told The Indian Express.

The draft law is now ready,and will be sent soon to the Law Ministry for its approval.

Noting that there were reports of incidents of sexual harassment and mental torture of domestic helps,Tirath said such trends would be contained and action taken against the culprits whenever such reports were received.

She said that as per a Supreme Court order,the government intended to constitute local complaint committees at the district and block level under the proposed Bill to deal with such complaints.

In the draft we have also taken care that such cases (of sexual harassment) should be heard by woman magistrates and in case of rural areas,the panchayats should have at least one woman member, Tirath said.

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The National Commission for Women (NCW) said the decision to include domestic helps was taken following increasing numbers of complaints about maids being sexually harassed.

The Bill is based on a judgment of one of the cases and guidelines of Law Commission,said Girija Vyas,NCW chairperson. The recent case of an actor involved in raping the maid was only one such case. We felt that it was necessary to include this sector as well as there are enormous complaints that we get on a daily basis. The problem is the same for women working in an anganwadi or with any educated family. We have sent a bill to the government in this regard, Vyas added.