The Central Government gives highest priority to ensuring safety and security of women and has taken several legislative and policy interventions. Keeping this in view, the Government has enacted “The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013” (PoSH Act) which aims to provide protection to women against sexual harassment at workplace and for the prevention and redressal of complaints related to it. The Act covers all women, irrespective of their age, employment status or nature of work whether working in public or private, organised or unorganised sector. The Act casts an obligation upon employers of all workplaces, public or private, to provide a safe and secure working environment free from sexual harassment, whereby every employer is mandated to constitute an Internal Committee (IC) where the number of employees/ workers is more than ten. Similarly, the Appropriate Government is authorized to constitute Local Committee (LC) in every district to receive complaints from organizations having less than ten workers or if the complaint is against the employer himself.

 

The responsibility of the implementation of the Act at District and State levels rests with the appropriate Government to monitor the implementation of the Act and maintain data on the number of cases filed and disposed of in respect of all cases of sexual harassment at workplace, which are established, owned, controlled or wholly or substantially financed by funds provided directly or indirectly by the State.

 

Under the Mission Shakti Scheme of Ministry of Women and Child Development a holistic and victim-centric approach is adopted to strengthen safety, security and empowerment of women. Key initiatives of the Scheme include:

1. One Stop Centre Scheme: Operational since 2015 to provide integrated services such as medical aid, legal assistance, temporary shelter, police facilitation and psycho-social counselling. 926 One Stop Centers (OSCs) are operational across the country and have assisted over 13.37 lakh women up to 31 December, 2025.
2. Women Help Desks: 15,049 set up in police stations, of which 14,363 are headed by women police officers.
3. Women Helpline-181 and Emergency Response Support System (ERSS-112) providing emergency and support services. The Women Helpline has handled over 2.88 crore calls and assisted over 99.09 lakh women.

 

The Government, through institutions like the National Commission for Women (NCW) and its counterparts in States have been spreading awareness through seminars, workshops, audio- visual, print and electronic media etc. to sensitize the people about the safety and security of women and also about various provisions of the legislation and policies etc. Employers are required to organize workshops and awareness programs at regular intervals for sensitizing the employees with the provisions of the Act and orientation programmes for members of the Internal Committee in the manner as may be prescribed.

 

The Ministry has launched the 'Mission Shakti Portal' with all functional features on January 22, 2025. This Portal aims to enhance accessibility of various government services for women, establish quality mechanisms for rescue, protection, and rehabilitation, and build the capacity of functionaries and duty holders under various schemes and legislations. Further, the SHe-Box Portal provides a centralised platform to file and track complaints related to workplace sexual harassment under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

 

This information was given by the Minister of State for Women and Child Development Smt. Savitri Thakur in Lok Sabha in reply to a question.

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