Women Development Cell, University of Mumbai in association with the NGOs working on Women issues, has initiated a two days workshop on Gender and Violence against women, for 740 colleges, divided in 8 zones..
The workshops are designed for faculty members, and College Complaint Committee members (ICC), to develop an understanding on Sexual Violence, legal tools with a focus on Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act.
First such workshop was conducted at R.A Podar College on 27th and 28th of August 2015. Special focus was on Sexual Harassment of Women At Workplace Act 2013. Team members from HRLN conducted the workshop on the second day and this focused mainly on the legalities of sexual harassment at workplace .
Everything from the presence of an Act to its implementation along with the penal provisions followed in case of non compliance and other legal remedies which are available to the victim were discussed.
The role of Committee to ensure the natural justice, Inquiry procedure, challenges of inquiry were discussed in detail. The basic principles of Non judgemental approach, gender sensitivity, Confidentiality were centric to the discussion.
The workshop was very participatory in nature, the participants did role plays as committee members on different situational cases.
Members of WDC Mumbai University gave several examples of cases that they dealt with in the past (without disclosing identities or any other details of the case) in order to familiarise the teachers about the loopholes that they must not fall prey to while conducting the Inquiry .The Spirit and the Letter of the Law was thoroughly emphasised on.
A query session was conducted by HRLN wherein any legal queries of the participants were addressed too .
Women and Violence 