IIM Indore organized an Awareness Session on Sexual Harassment at Workplace on August 09, 2018. Conducted in two parts—morning session for the administrative offices and afternoon session for the students and programme offices, the talk aimed at creating awareness among the employees and students regarding various types of sexual harassments, how to make complaints and laws related to the same. The sessions were conducted by Ms. Samriti Makkar Midha, Psychologist and Ms. Sana Hakim, Advocate. Both of the experts also work with POSH at Work—an organization that believes that sexual harassment at workplace does not only cause mental and/or physical damage to the person harassed; but also seriously curtails opportunities at work by creating a discriminatory work environment.
Col. Gururaj Gopinath Pamidi (Retd.), CAO, IIM Indore welcomed the speakers and briefed the importance of the session. This was followed by talks by Ms. Midha and Ms. Hakim, who via presentation explained to the participants various aspects related to hearing and addressing complaints regarding sexual harassment and spreading awareness about gender-related issues and functioning of the Internal Complaints Committee.
Discussion about various laws in context to sexual harassment namely, Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedures Code and Information Technology Act also took place. The session concluded with details of how any organization can take preventive measures against sexual harassment.