Ever heard about the word ‘smile’, the herald of disaster for women. Yes the same word often ‘over’ understood. Isn’t it amazing that how a ‘mere’ smile leads to harassing a woman in our society? Our religion taught us that smiling is sadqa-e-jaria, but in our society it is considered as an invitation to harassment. Sexual harassment is a form of Sex discrimination that occurs in the workplace. This term not only belongs to the nature of any physical touch but all kinds of gestures, behaviour and words that are beyond the defined limitation of a societies’ norms and values are termed as sexual harassment. 

Persecution is a form of an offensive behaviour, humiliation of a person, which may be targeted on the basis of gender, race or ethnicity. As we all know that females are excelling in all walks of life at the same workplace with their male colleagues, such cases may have a rise in number day by day. I am sure many of the working women may have faced any sort of harassment mentioned above. As a woman I believe that there should be a safe, friendly and most importantly a healthy environment to work for as we all spent 70 percent of a day in our offices. But unfortunately the required respect is not being given and is creating an emotional distress among the females. 

Some of you may not agree with me as our scholarly class has some other views when it comes to religion that women should stay at home and take care of her family and kids only. I wanted to ask that if our religion has given us the right of education then how it can restrict us to work. Everyone has its own justification for every verse according to their own interests. Right now, we are not living in an era where the whole family can depend on the income of a single person. Being a growing economy and having a large scale of population growth it is the need of the hour to make them work all to share the burden. So no one has the right to rule out the women that they are not allowed to work. Instead of making such imprudent excuses the whole society should encourage them to work. The pestering attitudes should be prohibited.

Consider the women working around you as a respected entity. Don’t suffocate them aggravating. Respect them. Open up your mind smiling back don’t perceive as “Hassi to phassi”. There is a mentality exists at work places, where the consequences of refusing are potentially very disadvantageous to the victim in terms of character assassination or to hinder through some administration related work or may be any kind of threatening that is why most of the females are paranoid to speak about it. 

This state of mind should be constrained by giving a shut up call to that particular class of morons that they are not only the authority. Strict measures can be adopted by the high ups to keep such giants in control. Create a groomed and vigorous environment around you so she can feel free to work and communicate. Don’t force her to create a shell around her which can perturb her capacity to work. Don’t destroy her talent. Consider us as a human being, give us respect as we cannot stop smiling, we cannot stop working, and we cannot let others humiliate us. 

This is our life don’t dictate us how to behave, how to live. This is what we will decide by ourselves and we better decide ‘with a smile’. A big thanks to Government of Punjab for strengthening our rights of living through harassment law and giving us protection from such persecuted elements of society. Though we are late in such breed of law formation, as United States Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which prohibited discrimination at work on the basis of race, colour, religion, national origin and sex. Canada passed the Law In 1984; the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibited sexual harassment at workplaces under federal jurisdiction. But again the formation of harassment Law is a big achievement.

Key points of The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act:

The act states, all provincial and district government bodies and authorities, including educational institutes and medical facilities, have to to constitute inquiry committees for harassment at the workplace and display the code of conduct for protection of women from harassment at the workplace in their office premises. The complainant has the option to submit a complaint to the inquiry committee, or the Ombudsperson. The committee will inform the accused person that he has been accused of harassment within 3 days of receiving a complaint. If the accused fails to submit his defence within 7 days, the committee will decide the matter without the accused person.

Under the act, the Ombudsperson has the power of a civil court, and can summon the accused, examine him on oath, receive evidence on affidavits, and enter office premises for the purpose of inspection or investigation. The committee or the Ombudsperson can decide the case and penalise the accused for harassment, as outlined in section 4 of the act.

The basic consciousness about law is obligatory. We must be aware of our protection rights. So the ladies out there, stay safe, stay strong, be happy, be the way you are.