What Your Anti Sexual Harassment Policy Should Look Like (But Does Not)

Welcome to this guide for designing anti sexual harassment policies for your workplace or educational institutions that I would like to call, “Believe Survivors” or more colloquially, “Fuck Patriarchy”.

In any other scenario I would have started out writing this article by establishing context, by building a reference to recent news pieces that highlighted how men are getting away with sexually harassing women, but do I really need to? I know that each of you reading this has had an incident come to mind as soon as you started reading this, either one that is personal or one that you read or heard about.

1. Start with following the law. Sexual harassment at the workplace and at educational institutions is illegal (as are all other forms of sexual harassment, even if conviction rates in India would lead you to believe otherwise). The law outlines what constitutes such harassment and details redressal mechanisms to be followed within the organisation for addressing such complaints. For survivors reading this, you can directly go to the police too, the internal mechanism is an alternative that you get to choose – not one that is meant to be imposed upon you

2. Now let’s get real, the law will not solve everything, you will have to. You cannot have a compliant legal system in place on one hand and perpetrate an environment that is sexist and inbred with hallmarks of rape culture. Breakdown the boys club vibe that you have going, shut down that joke about rape – it is never funny, don’t ask a female colleague to dress up “sexy” for a client meeting. Really, stop.

3. Gender sensitisation and anti sexual harassment trainings are a great long term solution and are very necessary, but survivors should not have to go through what they do in the pursuit of this long term goal. Start penalising. Take away jobs, promotions, social capital. Don’t invite speakers that have sexually harassed someone and not been penalised for it. Don’t hire such staff. Take away a prestigious student position if that student sexually harasses someone. Make it clear that the organisation won’t stand for sexual harassment and that there will be real life consequences.

4. What about people in your organisations that perpetrate sexual violence outside of your organisation? Apply the same principles to them. Make it known that you will not tolerate any sexual harassment, even if penetrated outside your organisation, and that this would be a valid reason for penalising them. Try and provide support to those survivors when you can as well, very often they will be partners or spouses of those working at your organization.

5.How do you decide the lines with regard to sexual harassment and flirtations at educational institutions and workplaces when most people meet new people at such settings? It’s quite simple really, you make the consent principle clear before you even hire a person. You need to make sure that everyone at the organisation knows a basic rule, that of asking before proceeding with anything other than a friendship. And before you ask, asking for consent never ruins a “moment”, even if it does, consent trumps everything. Start advocating for an explicit, enthusiastic yes rather than the mere absence of a no.

6. Ensure that there are protective measures for when someone at your organisation raises a complaint with regard to being sexually harassed. The perpetrator knows who they have harassed, they mostly have the contact details and other private information about that person. In work and educational setups they are often people in more senior positions, ergo those with more power, more money, more reach. There is nothing to say that someone who sexually harasses another person won’t harass them further in other ways when that person reports them.

7. In case the survivor chooses to take legal action via the criminal justice system, support them, do not alienate them.

8. What aftercare measures do you have? Do you even have aftercare measures? Even when survivors are able to secure justice through the legal procedure, they tend to leave that place of work in a few months. The place can often be a reminder of what survivors have been through. Ensure that you provide them with free mental healthcare and rally support and funds for any other form of financial or physical care they may require. Give them time off, give them control over their surroundings, let them decide – support their decisions. If they do decide to leave, help them transition to another job, do not make the sexual harassment they have faced a part of what you communicate to their new workplace without their consent.

9. Reporting is not something that a survivor owes you. Stop putting the onus of prevention of sexual harassment in the future on the survivor by using that to pressurise the to report. Their experiences and their story is their own to tell. It is your job to build a culture that prevents such acts from even happening. Also, do not blame them or penalise them for reporting after a certain duration of time. Yes, reporting is extremely important for a multitude of reasons, but do not shift the narrative and the responsibility of prevention on the survivor.

Don’t just preach these measures verbally or use them to market your organisation. Write this down. Make it part of your company policy and thereby an actual part of your workplace culture. Make these rights tangible and actionable. Include this in your HR policy and make sure each new hire is informed extensively of these norms and knows the consequences of violating them. A survivor shouldn’t have to be dependent on your goodwill for knowing that they will receive support and care: it should be, and is, their right.

Vandita Morarka has worked towards addressing sexual violence for the past 3 years. She has undertaken trainings for sensitisation for over 20,000 persons directly, provided legal aid to survivors of sexual violence, built leadership to tackle sexual violence at institutions, and has designed policy-legal solutions for preventing sexual violence and ensuring justice in the face of sexual violence. She is the Founder and CEO of One Future Collective, Tweets @vanditamorarka

Featured image: Erwan Hesry