Dr. Vasanthakumari Jayaraman | Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Work Place

Dr. Vasantha Kumari is a Consultant Psychologist spoke about the most important and crucial topic in the current world scenario, “Prevention of Sexual Harassment at Work Place” She started he talk by telling Violence against women (VAW) is a universal phenomenon that denotes women being subjected to various form of harm, physically, psychologically and socially. Gender based violence happen to women simply due to her gender. In the first stage women has to identify/recognize harassment by asking certain questions to herself like Do I consent to the behavior? Does the behavior make me uncomfortable? Does the behavior violate my dignity?, Does it violate my right to work with dignity in a safe working environment?. In addition to this one has to understand what actually constitutes sexual harassment: Physical contact and advances, Request for sexual favors, sexually colored remarks, showing pornography, physical, verbal or non-verbal sexual conduct.

She highlighted in order to prevent sexual harassment at work place it is imperative for every organization to have ICC (Internal Complaints Committee) comprising of Presiding Officer -Women employee of senior level; 2 employee members – committed to the cause of women/experience in social work/legal knowledge; 1 external member – from NGO/other women’s organization. This ICC should contain 50% women and their tenure would be minimum 3 years.

In the last segment of talk she concluded by explaining how the sexual harassment complaint works, what is the appeal policy, how the confidentiality of the issue should be maintained and what are the employer responsibility as well as ICC’s responsibility in the prevention of sexual harassment. Overall this talk was very informative.

About – Dr. Vasanthakumari Jayaraman

Dr. Vasanthakumari Jayaraman is based in Chennai and has been working as a Learning Adviser and Consultant Psychologist for the last two decades. She is passionate about meeting people, coaching, mentoring, guiding, counselling and training. She has done her Masters in Sociology, Psychology & Management with a Ph.D. in Women Entrepreneurship from Annamalai University & University of Madras. She is a ‘Prevention of Sexual Harassment’ Committee Member at Michelin and a ‘Learning Development’ Consultant at NIS Sparta. Dr. Vasanthakumari has a great experience in developing successful women entrepreneurs. She is passionate about change and practices effective for change management through counselling and consulting. She has conducted 1000 Man-hours training programs for employees, all over Tamil Nadu. She is a practicing Counsellor for depression/stress related issues and also has experience in behavioral training, marital / Industrial counselling. Previously she has worked as an external faculty member for the MBA students on Entrepreneurship Programs for Vellore Institute of Technology. In association with the CSR wing of CII, she has also worked as a mentor for the Southern region.