IT industry: A relatively safe place for women

CIOL Bureau

BANGALORE: The Indian IT industry has been recently rocked by sexual harassment cases involving high-profile names. Yet, leading legal experts say that the IT industry sees relatively less number of cases of sexual harassment at the workplace.

"There are sexual harassment cases filed in the IT sector in Indian courts, few of which we have handled", says Venugopal, Sr advocate with Singhania and co. "But when compared to other sectors, the IT sector is far safer for women," he says. "Actually, the highest number of sexual harassment cases we encounter are from the hospitals," says Sowjanya, another legal expert.

The much-publicized case against Phaneesh Murthy of Infosys, was settled out of court, by shelling out a whopping $3 million for the victim. How many of such cases are for real and how many are driven by the greed factor? "That’s hard to say. But it’s hard to prove a total falsehood in a U.S court, although there is a possibility of a discrepancy in reporting the actual degree of harassment," says Venugopal.

Women constitute 14% of the IT industry in India and 26% of the BPO workforce, according to the DQ-IDC Salary survey 2003. The total workforce of IT and BPO is approximately 7 lakhs, according to NASSCOM, and is growing by the day.

It is heartening to know that women are relatively more secure in the workplace. "However, in India, many harassment cases go unreported, for obvious reasons", says Venugopal.

With India hogging the limelight as the hottest destination for IT and BPO, it is important for companies to create a secure environment for women and provide for the necessary checks and balances.