The Ministry of Women and Child Development, which is headed by the Union Minister Smt. Annpurna Devi, has commissioned the new SHe-Box website, through which women may file and track complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace. The launch event was conducted in New Delhi today. During the one-day event, she also commissioned the new website of the Ministry.
The new She-Box portal acts as a reference point for all information and detailing Internal Committees (ICs) and Local Committees (LCs) set up across the country including in the government and private sectors. It provides a common place for women to lodge complaints, follow the status of such complaints, and ensure timely resolution of complaint by ICs. It gives a guaranteed grievance redressal mechanism and effective working model for all the parties involved. The portal through a designated nodal officer will also help in tracking the complaints continuously.
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Statistics for violence against women in workplace
Patriarchal workplaces subordinate women to men so that the male-dominated superior position tends to exploit women. This makes it hard for the victims to prevent harassment incidences, as well as deal with instances of harassment, due to ignorance of legal rights and procedures.
Quite many offices and companies, particularly in the informal economy or where male dominated, are reported to be reluctant in implementing Interior Complaints Committees (ICCs) or are not fully compliant with the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act passed in 2013.
For eg – A 2024 survey conducted by The Udaiti Foundation revealed that about 59% of organizations had no formal compliance with ICCs. Lack of efficiency might be a common issue with Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) with issues like poor confidentiality, bias or interference from certain lords as some of the challenges a working place might face. This serves to put a very big dent under the complaint and resolution mechanism.
In India, as per the report in Business Standard that proved restriction from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, from the year 2018 to 2022, there were more than 400 sexually harassed cases at work each year. According to a survey of the workplace conducted by the Martha Farrell Foundation in 2018, new78 percent of working women in India have been harassed at the workplace, and 38 percent within the previous year.
As per the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (Ashoka University), POSH Act cases reporting sexual harassment have escalated from 161 cases in the year 2013-14 to 1,160 cases in the year 2022-23.
About the SHe-Box portal
Based on the official press release, the new portal ‘SHe-Box’ is erected as the consolidated promulgation of the information regarding Internal Committees (ICs) and Local Committees (LCs) constituted throughout India public and private domain.
The government in its official statement through the WCD Ministry pointed out the fact that: “It provides a unified interface for women in workplace to register complaints, check their status and ensure timely disposal of complaints by the ICs too… thus providing grievance redressal assurance and complaint management for all the stakeholders… The portal will also provide real time tracking of the complaint through a nodal officer.”
Steps for filing complaint via the SHe-Box portal
Here is detailed procedure which can be followed in order to file a complaint through SHe-Box Portal:
Step 1: Visit on the SHe-Box website using the URL: https://shebox.wcd.gov.in/
Step 2: Click on Register your complaint
Step 3: Choose register complaint
Step 4: From the two options, select the ‘Central Government’.
Step 5: From the options provided in the list, click on Ministry and Department then complete all other fields to proceed to the next step.
Step 6: Type in all the required parts in the form and click the ‘next’ button.
Step 7: Fill the all the required information of registration and press the button Register
