Violence against Women and Sexual Harassment at Work Places-Issues and Policies

This paper deals with the issues related to violence against women and sexual harassment at work places as this has emerged as one of the major noticeable Human Resource Management issues at work place. This paper summarizes the extensive literatures available on this issue in India. The women's participation in the economic sector is crucial for their economic empowerment and sustainability as well as for the development of the economies. However, problems such as sexual harassment and different kinds of violence against women in the workplace discourage them to join the economic sectors and for the continuation of their job tenure. It is increasingly being recognized as a violation of human rights and human dignity, which undermines equality of opportunity and treatment between men and women. As women's participation is growing in employment sectors, the prohibition of sexual harassment is necessary to ensure safe and healthy working environment. The violence against women and sexual harassment at work place causes psychological and physical injuries to the human resources and affects negatively to the organizational effectiveness and productivity of an organization as these leads to higher absenteeism, employee turnover, and lower employees' morale. Hence, there is a need to look upon this matter sincerely and seriously by the concerned authorities such as policy makers of the organizations and government. Proper mechanisms should be developed to deal with these issues. The goal must be to nullify any kinds of violence against women and sexual harassment at work settings or elsewhere. In addition to that this paper brings down some of the best practices of the corporations to check the violence against women and sexual harassment at workplace.