Little wonder then that she was one of the first to incorporate the Supreme Court's orders on sexual harassment at the workplace into her company's framework. Now she is working on sensitising employees to the issue.

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), a government organisation, too, set up a committee on dealing with sexual harassment within the organisation, getting a headstart over most of its counterpart organisations in the government.

Working in conjunction with Sakshi, an NGO that works on women's issues, employees of The Park Hotel, Delhi, and BIS have been attending workshops where they are made familiar with what constitutes sexual harassment and howto deal with it.

"We don't want to make our male colleagues feel threatened by the introduction of these guidelines in the office rules. Instead, we want them to develop a positive attitude to the issue," says Paul. Starting January this year, The Park has had seven such seminars covering more than 50 per cent of the employees.

"By the end of the year, all the staff would have attended at least one of the seminars. We have also started work on introducing the concept in other offices starting with the hotel in Calcutta," explains Paul.

The seminars have been interactive so that employees can air their fears and clear their doubts on what exactly constitutes sexual harassment. "We tailor the workshops to the needs of the company. A government office will be handled differently from a corporate, which already has a good working culture," says Geeta, programme coordinator for Sakshi.

At BIS, the committee, headed by one of the directors, Madhulika Prakash, has already been active in dealing with severalcomplaints. "Most of the problems that were brought before the committee were not cases that have begun recently. They had been happening over a long period of time, but when the committee was set up the staffers felt empowered and brought out their problems," says Prakash.

Most of the problems brought before such committees have not been very serious in nature. "They have more to do with crude language used by male staffers," says Prakash. With the committee pulling up one or two staffers, behavioural changes have taken place in the others.

Paul has made it clear to the employees that there will be no class bias on this subject and everyone from the general manager down to the unskilled workers on the staff will participate in the programme. "We have had a very positive response from the staff, especially the menfolk. People are recognising the need to understand the issue," says Paul.

Initially, there was fear that the code of conduct would be heavily loaded in favour of women. "Though the SupremeCourt guidelines are more favourable towards female employees, we know that many male members may also feel harassed. So we are taking care of this aspect while dealing with the subject of sexual harassment," says Paul. "I don't believe in feminism but humanism," she adds.

Prakash agrees. "It is not as if only male colleagues have been pulled up. We have handled a case where a female employee was aggressive towards her male colleague. Most of the cases can be dealt with minor penalties such as change of placement or transfers," she says.

In fact, a male employee who was transferred out of Delhi following the committee finding him guilty of harassing a colleague came back to his original posting after he showed repentance and positive behavioural changes, she says.

As per the SC's directives, the company should also set up an appropriate complaints mechanism, with provisions for a complaints committee, a special counsellor and other support services for handling complaints. The court has stipulated thatthe committee has to be headed by a woman, at least half the other members should be women and to prevent undue pressure from the organisation, the committee has to have a third party representative from an NGO conversant with the issue of sexual harassment.

The court also says that the committee should handle complaints confidentially within a time-bound framework and submit an annual report to the concerned government department.

The court has defined sexual harassment as unwelcome sexually determined behaviour, direct or by implication, and includes physical contact and advances; a determined request for sexual favours; sexually coloured remarks; showing pornography; any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature.

The guidelines set by the court have to be followed in all places of work, including institutions such as universities, hospitals, government service and other professional bodies. And sexual harassment has now been brought within the purview of human rightsviolations.

The Park Hotel has already set up the committee, with a member from Sakshi heading it. "We have set up the committee as per the guidelines, but are yet to receive any complaints. The staff have been informed on how to go about the complaint and whom to contact," says Paul.

Before the committee was set up, there have not been many cases of sexual harassment in the organisation that were brought to the notice of the management. "We have had one or two cases, but nothing that could not be resolved amicably. Even so, we are seriously implementing the SC's guidelines to ensure that there are no such problems at all," she says.

The basic idea of the whole exercise, she feels, is that the message should go out to the employees and to the people outside that the hotel is a safe employer. "The signal should be one of friendliness and not intimidation,"says Paul.

Sakshi, which has been one of the parties to the case for formulating these guideline, wants just this kind of attitudinal changes inorganisations."The spirit of the guidelines should be to prevent harassment in any form and the guidelines should not be looked at as intimidating in nature," says Nandini of Sakshi. The whole issue is about changing attitudes and the committee should be used only as a preventive mechanism, she feels.

Sexual harassment has been termed as a human rights violation, though the guidelines are yet to be legislated. However, Sakshi is cautious about pushing for legislation soon. Says Nandini, "We would rather wait for the guidelines to be tested as a concept before it is legislated than find that some of the rules are irrelevant later. Right now, the guidelines themselves are enough punishment."