Dr. Charu Walikhanna, Member, NCW was Chief Guest at ‘Gender Sensitization’ programme organised by SJVN Limited, New Delhi on 09.05.2013. 

The inaugural address was delivered by the Chairman, SJVN, Shri R P Singh, who said that the SJVN Ltd formerly known as Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited, is a joint venture of Govt of India and Govt. of Himachal Pradesh and a mini Ratna PSU. He emphasised that SJVN has a large number of employees in remote areas and at the site level where an atmosphere of goodwill and mutual trust prevails. 

Dr. Charu WaliKhanna spoke on the role of NCW and the initiatives taken by it prevention of sexual harassment at workplace, specifically, in the drafting of the law relating to it. She also spoke about the mandatory requirement of constitution of Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) as per the Supreme Court guidelines given in the Vishakha judgment. She said that it has been observed that most organizations / institutions have constituted an ICC, but it is not as per Supreme Court guidelines. She stressed on visibility of the ICC and all employees to be made aware of its existence. She added that the law requires the ICC be headed by a woman, half the members should be women and there should be inclusion of a third party / NGO, who is accessible, approachable, committed, sensitive and understanding. 

She spoke extensively on right and problems of working women, need for gender sensitization and women’s vulnerability to sexual violence etc and presented ‘NCW Wallet book’ and distributed publication on rights of women developed by NCW among participants. 

The participants included executive level officers including Executive Directors with the objective of the programme being to enhance general awareness of laws relating to women and gender sensitization. 

In order to get feedback the house was open to discussion and each participant asked as how he/ she gained from the said programme. Most of the participants said that it was a great learning experience and highly thought provoking. An interesting suggestion came from a participant who said that since films / media have an impact in the mind of the Indian audience, there should be scroll running on the screen as in the case of smoking scenes wherein an anti-smoking scroll is run. When a scene relating to crime against women is showed in films the scroll should display the punishment relating to the offence. 

It was also felt by the participants that at induction stage training should be given to employees on gender issues and prevention of sexual harassment at workplace.