Our First Milestone :) - An engaging interaction with our decision makers!

Dear Supporters, We are super glad and excited to inform you of our first milestone in this campaign advocating for safe workspaces for women of Telangana!

On 15th April, our team and Spurthi Kolipaka of WomComMatters were invited for a meeting with our primary decision makers - Women Development & Child Welfare Department of Telangana along with some distinguished field experts from Hyderabad District, Ms.Sunita (LC member) & Ms.Asha latha(Rythu Swarajya Vedika) to discuss the efficacy concerns of PoSH Act, 2013, and T-shebox functioning.

Needless to say that our petition was the crucial factor that led us to be a part of this meeting. The Points of advocacy that were positively acknowledged by the officials were:

  1. Adopting a similar model as Maharashtra and develop a standardized module/course for gender sensitization in local languages of the state apart from English. 

2. Employing Digital Medium for Report Collection - Developing a standard format for data and annual report collection from registered companies and district offices instead of collecting hardcopies, which makes it difficult to collate and manage data.

3. Third-party assessment primarily to evaluate the functioning of constituted ICs/LCs and whether the constitution of committees have taken place. Our suggestion highlights the necessity of employing a third-party in order to eliminate biases and ensure transparency. When asked, we had also suggested potential agencies and research bodies that can carry-out this assessment and we're intending to delve deep into this.

4. Encouraging organizations, unions, and corporate congregations to voluntarily take part in this process of ensuring safety at workplaces, which also has the potential to foster a healthy engagement and relationship between all the stakeholders involved.

We are hugely and deeply thankful to Ms. Divya Devarajan joint secretary and commissioner WDCW department of Telangana for proactively taking measures to curb harassment, and working to ensure safe workspaces for women.

Being invited for a discussion with the decision makers is an important achievement for our campaign since it reiterates the fact that our petition is being taken seriously by our decision makers and given a listening ear to the main concerns of working women in the state. This is definitely a step forward towards gender-sensitive workspaces & also a step nearer to a gender equal society.

We urge you to share this petition widely and amplify it for more signatures so that our collective voice is big enough to create an impactful change!