In the past decade, India has seen rapid growth, not only in metropolitan spaces but even in tier II and tier III cities. Tier II cities, especially, are fuelling India’s economic growth and have seen a growing corporate presence. This growth has also fueled the participation of women in the workplace with women in tier II cities leading in terms of women’s role in household finances.
The Indian government introduced the Sexual Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013 or PoSH Act with the aim of creating safer workplaces for women and hence, encouraging participation of women in the labour markets. The match that lit the fire of the PoSH Act 2013 itself does not find its origin in tier 1 cities where implementation is often limited but began with Bhanwari Devi, a social worker who worked in rural Rajasthan.
Sexual harassment in Tier II cities
A 2017 survey across tier 1 and tier II cities in India encompassing 6,000 employees found that sexual harassment at the workplace is a concern across industries with 37% of the women responding that they had faced sexual harassment at the workplace.
Even with the sizeable number of women facing sexual harassment, reporting remains low with 68.9% of women who faced sexual harassment not reporting due to stigma, fear of retribution, embarrassment, lack of awareness of reporting processes, or lack of confidence in the redressal mechanism.
Gender stereotypes also impact women’s experiences in the workplace. The experience of sexual harassment is as widespread in tier II cities as in other parts of India, which is exacerbated by attitudes towards gender prevalent in tier II cities. A study from 2021 regarding women in the platform economy across tier I and II cities noted that preconceived notions regarding the appropriate role of women as homemakers and mothers impact their ability to inhabit and thrive in the workplace.
Designing interventions for tier II cities
The problem of sexual harassment at the workplace is existent, across cities and requires intervention. Intervention by way of creating awareness and setting up robust policies is essential to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace.
However, there are specific needs for interventions designed for tier II cities. Tier II cities face a unique demographic challenge in terms of the implementation of prevention of sexual harassment due to the presence of varied age demographics, varied levels of understanding of sexual harassment and varying language proficiencies.
The industries that are experiencing growth in tier II cities are varied- from banking and finance to manufacturing to IT. Hence, the diversity of organizational setup, the nature of work undertaken as well as the nature of employees impact the nature of intervention required.
Diversity in demographics and levels of awareness also require that interventions are tailored to address the specific needs of the target audience.