non-availability of proper forums such as provincial ombudsperson and the three-member inquiry committee that was supposed to be set up within all the departments and institutions, the working women often remain silent.
The women also lack knowledge on how to get help when faced with such a situation.
In December 2011, a case of sexual harassment had surfaced in the provincial government’s Probation and Reclamation Department, but due to non-availability of the ombudsman the women officers approached the Peshawar High Court to seek justice. The female probation officers of the department had accused the director of the department of sexual harassment.
In March 2010, the federal government passed two laws against sexual harassment in the workplace. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act amended the Pakistan Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, making workplace harassment against women punishable with imprisonment of up to three years or fine of Rs500,000, or both.
The new law defines sexual harassment in a better way and provides for enhanced punishment under Section 509 of the PPC.
The Sexual Harassment Law requires displaying the code of conduct in an organisation, forming a three-member inquiry committee and holding awareness seminar for its staff.
Though the Act makes it mandatory that “Each organisation shall constitute an inquiry committee within 30 days of the enactment of this Act to enquire into complaints under this Act,” many organisations still do not have such a committee. According to the Act, the committee shall consist of three members, including at least one woman.
The law imposes penalties like withholding promotion or increment, stoppage at an efficiency bar in the time-scale, and recovery of the compensation payable to the complainant from pay or any other source of the accused.
Major penalties include demotion to a lower post or time-scale, compulsory retirement, removal from service and fine. The law also says that a part of the fine can be used to compensate the complainant. There is need for publicising the law and making the women aware of its benefits. Most women and young girls who have to go to workplaces using public transport face such problems, but do not have information where to file their complaints.
However, there is no such authority to take action on complaints at the provincial level though the Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010 says that the respective “governments shall appoint an ombudsman at the federal and provincial levels.”
In March 2010, a national assembly for women was marked at the Prime Minister’s Secretariat where Musarat Hilali, now a judge of the Peshawar High Court, was appointed as the federal ombudsperson to take up cases of sexual harassment.
On the same day it was also announced by the prime minister that every province was bound to appoint an ombudsperson to deal with cases of sexual harassment.
The ombudsperson in Punjab and Sindh provinces were appointed while the governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan didn’t take any interest in the appointment of ombudspersons.