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LAW INTERVIEW

Need for sexual harassment prevention law
SOME rights are inherent to human beings which accrue as soon as they take their first breath. Among those, right to live is the most important one. To that end our Constitution ensured equality before law as a fundamental right.
More specifically, Article 11 of the Constitution deals with democracy and human rights, Article 15 states about the provision for basic necessities, Article 19(1), 28(2), 32, 36, 39 deal with equality of opportunity, discrimination on the ground of
religion etc, protection of right to life and personal liberty, freedom of movement, and freedom of thought and conscience and of speech respectively. Unfortunately, women and children are still being deprived of these rights. As a necessary consequence reports of such rights violation are not all too uncommon.
Recently, lots of cases have been lodged where women faced harassment. With a view to demoralize women and discriminate them, harassments take place almost everywhere including universities, colleges, schools, madrasas and offices too. Previously, all these incidents could only make a place in the newspapers but recently women have started raising their voice against the perpetrator and demanding punishment. The number of women who escaped from being a victim is very low. According to a statistics of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association, 44.6 per cent women workers fall victim of sexual harassment. Unfortunately, among these group 27.6 per cent women did not take any action against the perpetrator and remaining 27.8 per cent women denied the incident. This statistics more specifically point out that 30.06 per cent women were harassed by their superiors while 18.08 per cent by their co-workers. Most of the women did not protest just to retain their jobs.
It has been a common phenomenon that women will be blamed for the incident if it gets to others around. Society always raises its finger against the women's morality, character and costume too. Due to these impediments women prefer to remain silent which adds extra cushion to the perpetrator's feeling of security. Our society is being dominated by the male and that's why women get deprived in every single step of their life.
Sexual harassment is entirely
inhuman and puts the victim into extreme pain, which cannot be expressed in words nor can it be measured or quantified. Unfortunately, our existing procedural law compels women to establish the occurrence of harassment by explaining the events that constitute the event. Even the people responsible for investigation often make indecent comments, said the guardian of a victim who suffered harassment in Jahangir Nagar University. With the passage of time, sexual harassment increases to a great degree. Absence of any specific law on this issue makes it imperative for the Supreme Court to require one. Moreover, Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association on behalf of women of all universities, schools, colleges and workplaces filed Public interest litigation (WP 5916/2008) in this regard.
The High Court Division issued a rule upon the Government to show cause as to why it would not enact a law on the prevention of sexual harassment. On 24th September, 2008 BNWLA organised a seminar where participants emphasised more on the enactment of specific law so as to protect women from being victim of sexual harassment.
In a conversation with Law Desk (LD) Advocate Salma Ali (SA) Executive Director of BNWLA, stressed on the following elements that she thinks should form part of the proposed new law to resolve the menace of sexual harassment:
1.It should have gender balance.
2.Victim's protection should get utmost importance; otherwise problems will remain unchanged as there are still lacks of victim and witness protection protocol.
3.Provision for compensation should be there for victims.
4.Inquiry mechanism and investigation committee to be formed under the gqjdeline which should
be unbiased.
5.BNWLA demands an equitable committee wherein majority of the members would be women.
6.Even sexual harassment problem can solve by the section 10 of the Women and Children Repression Act 2000. As a result of this it should be include.
7.There should also have a victimfriendly complaint procedure so that a victim does not feel hesitation to voice their grievances.
Sexual harassment is a severe violation of human rights. Conducts that constitute sexual harassment or abuse must be well-defined because the section on the same kind of offence was removed from the Women and Children Repression Act, 2000 on the allegation of misuse. Attitude of the medical practitioners, especially the male ones, is another area that requires improvement. They should be absolutely unbiased to ensure that culprits don't escape unpunished for mere negligence on the part of medical personnel or male chauvinism. They need to be sensitized. Seminars and awareness programmes need to be arranged at the grass root level. At procedural stage enforcement of camera trail would prevent the victim from further harassment.
Given the nature of offence and with the possibility of little direct evidence, circumstantial evidence should be taken into consideration in the disposal of a case. Court environment must be women and children friendly. Government can play an important role by enacting a 'victim and witness protection law' as soon as possible. Above all, increase in the respect for women is the most crucial thing that can reduce the rate of such crimes. Perpetrators should place themselves into the victim's position and need to realize that this is a crime.
The article is based on an interview with Advocate Salma Ali, Executive Director of BNWLA