The Ministry of Women and Child Development has empanelled 223 law firms and social organizations as of November 2018. The firms include Counsel Quest, Integrity Law Offices, Legal Intellects and PAV Law Offices along with social organizations to hold awareness exercises in order to improve security for women at workplaces.
More than 50,000 participants had attended over 700 capacity building and awareness exercises on the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH).
“Empanelled institutions are shouldering the responsibility of spreading awareness about anti-sexual harassment laws through training sessions for employees of private and government organizations,” Rachna Roy, the founder of Counsel Quest, told India Business Law Journal. She said organizations such as hers were also working with companies to create and structure internal complaint committees (ICC) and help them to create awareness campaigns.
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Nidhi Mathur, a partner at Integrity Law Offices, said being empanelled with the ministry increases their credibility with companies looking to organize workshops on the POSH Act. “I have met the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi and she said people should be made aware of the legal and grievance redressal mechanisms.”
Both Mathur and Roy said the empanelment was not as a result of the #MeToo movement. However, Mathur said she was witnessing a greater willingness among in-house counsel and company management to conduct awareness programmes. “Earlier companies would train only a few of the ICC members and leaders. However, now [most companies] show an interest in all their employees being trained.”
The ministry requires empanelled organizations to submit reports each quarter on all the training programmes and workshop conducted by them.
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