New Delhi: As the #MeToo movement gathers momentum and becomes stronger in the country, a new survey has revealed that a staggering 78% of women choose not to report experiences of sexual harassment at workplaces.
A survey conducted by LocalCircles, which polled more than 28,000 votes from 15,000 people, shows that 32% of the respondents said they personally, or someone from their family has experienced or observed harassment at workplaces. This is against 45% of women who reported no such experiences while 23% said that they were “unsure.”
About 40% of the participants of the survey were from tier-1 cities, 28% from tier-2 cities and 32% belonged to tier-3 cities and rural areas.
It is notable that 78% of them said that they did not take up the matter with the concerned authorities.
The survey further revealed that 50% incidents of harassment happened during regular work hours while 19% said that it happened after-hours. Apart from that, about 31% of the respondents said that such incidents occurred beyond office premises in social gatherings and other private spaces.
The survey also looked into the nature of sexual harassment that is carried out at workplaces. While 50% said physical advances were made, 19% of the respondents revealed that they were asked for sexual favors. About 31% of the women said they faced harassment in the form of sexually colored remarks or were forcibly made to watch porn.
While #MeToo was coined by activist Tarana Burke way back in 2006, the term gained traction only recently with the Harvey Weinstein revelations of 2017.
This happened after The New York Times and The New Yorker published an investigative piece about the alleged predatory behavior of the Hollywood mogul that stretched back for decades and saw him sexually harass and assault dozens of women.
In India, soon after actress Tanushree Dutta outed fellow actor Nana Patekar, women from across industries started calling out their harassers. Names including Union Minister MJ Akbar, film maker Sajid Khan, singer Kailash Kher, along with many senior journalists have come out during these revelations
Many of the accused have either been asked to step away from their respective jobs or have done so themselves.
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