Safety of Women Employees Strengthened After Delhi Gang Rape Incident

Bangalore: As the Delhi gang rape continues to have the entire nation stunned and angered, establishments across India are now taking further steps to ensure safety of their female staff members. The horrific incident has driven corporate India to take some responsible measures to effectively help in securing the safety of their women staff. Some steps which were implemented include: mass pepper spray supplies to women employees, gizmos & 24×7 help lines, to name a few. Some organizations also provide karate classes to women staff, as part of the empowerment drive; as reported by thefirstpost.com and thehindu.com.

According to a report in the Economic Times, to ensure protection for women employees,  corporate India is  doing all they can  like organizing  processional security escorts to take them  back home safely, holding self-defense workshops as well as permitting them to leave early.

After the infamous gang-rape and murder, of Wipro BPO employee, Jyotikumari Choudhary back in November 2007, the company developed multi-level safety measures in order to achieve absolute protection for their female employees. Wipro now runs late night cabs only at scheduled timings. Each cab and the routes they take are registered with the transport department.  A security guard is also hired to sit in every cab to accompany the female employee to the doorstep. The company is also equipped with a vehicle-tracking system that enables company’s security officials to track the location of vehicles ferrying employees. Wipro has also introduced a  24X7 toll-free support number from which employees can report, if at all there is an emergency.

Organizations such as Cognizant, Infosys, HCL,TCS and Wipro enforce strict rules which also include sacking people who are caught harassing women at the workplace.

Companies now also enforce rules against, ‘textual harassing’, under which a female employee can report to authority if a male colleague sends her lewd messages.

“But the focus is to ensure that the issue is sorted out internally. There have been instances where the woman has wanted to file a police complaint but companies have stopped her, promising it will be dealt with,” says Reena Pillai, who works as a counselor in an IT company.