‘SHe-box’ portal launched for plaints on sexual harassment

Union Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Monday said that the ministry is soon going to conduct a national survey to “assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment at the workplace”. Gandhi was speaking at a press conference where she unveiled the ‘SHe-box’, an online platform for government employees to register complaints about sexual harassment.

“The complaints committees in several organisations have not been functioning effectively. I receive several complaints from women. The portal will help in addressing those complaints,” Gandhi said. The portal, built by the National Informatics Centre, will be hosted on the WCD Ministry’s site at www.wcd-sh.nic.in.

Interacting with reporters later, Gandhi said, “If the internal complaints committees (on sexual harassment) is working, then we are out of the picture totally.” She added: “But people who will come to us are those women employees who work where there are no committees or there’s one for the sake of it or composed of people who are outrightly negative.”

The sexual harassment Act mandates that all workplaces with more than 10 workers constitute an internal complaints committee for receiving complaints of sexual harassment. “We are not treading on anybody’s toes. The idea of this portal is to remedy the cases before they reach the level where legal action may be warranted,” the minister told reporters.