The Centre for Women’s Studies conducted two special online lectures for the students of two Certificate Courses, namely Gender Issues and Women & Law on the topic “Sexual Harassment at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act, 2013” on 28th and 29th January 2021. The lectures were delivered by Prof. Gurpreet Bal, former Dean and Head of the Department of Sociology, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and the lectures were spread over two sessions covering both the conceptual and the implementation supported with an illustration of different cases.

The special lectures began with Welcome address by Prof.Vishav Raksha, Director, Centre for Women’s Studies. She gave a brief overview of the working of the Centre as well as of the two ongoing Courses.

Prof. Gurpreet Bal dwelt upon the status of women in Indian society in various spheres of life and highlighted that how women are perceived in patriarchal social structure and face various types of harassment at the domestic front as well as sexual harassment at the workplace and in places of higher learning.

She further gave details about Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, 2013 and also highlighted the importance as well as the working of the Internal Complaint Committee (ICC) formulated in the institutions of higher learning to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace. Prof. Bal also shared her personal experiences as Chairperson of ICC at GNDU, Amritsar. The sessions were very interactive and the students also narrated their experiences as well as raised many queries which were answered by the Resource Person to their satisfaction.