Patna: A safe workplace is not a favour to women employees but an extension of their fundamental right to dignity, equality and personal security, Bihar Police Academy director and ADG R Malar Vizhi said on Thursday. She urged Internal Complaints Committees (ICCs) to ensure that complaints of sexual harassment are heard with dignity and dealt with fairly.She was addressing around 350 ICC chairpersons and members from districts across Bihar, along with police officers from major divisions and wings of Bihar Police Headquarters, at a workshop on “POSH at the Workplace: Rights, Responsibilities, and Institutional Responses” at Sardar Patel Bhawan.The workshop marked the third and concluding day of a capacity-building series on gender-responsive policing, jointly organised by the Weaker Section, CID, Bihar Police; Gender Resource Centre of Chanakya National Law University (CNLU-GRC); and UNFPA Bihar.Inaugurating the workshop, Malar Vizhi said ICC members had a responsibility to reassure women employees that their workplaces had robust, accessible and impartial mechanisms to deal with all forms of sexual harassment.CNLU registrar S P Singh said deeply entrenched social biases and the historical subordination of women did not disappear at the workplace door. This, he said, made legislation such as the POSH Act essential to protect women’s dignity, safety and equal participation.CNLU-GRC director Ayushi Dube, additional SP Weaker Section Shivendra Kumar Anubhavi and AIG (Welfare) Smita Suman were also present.Smita Suman, Police Headquarters Internal Committee member Gunjan Bihari and Allahabad High Court advocate Anchal Gupta conducted sessions as resource persons.The three-day programme focused on making Bihar’s policing system more sensitive, accountable and responsive to gender concerns.
