#MeToo: Goa meet to focus on problems with prevention, redressal

Round table to include voices from various sectors

Saad Aangan, a women’s collective, in collaboration with International Centre Goa (ICG), will hold a #MeToo round table on ‘What #WeToo think about what ails the prevention and redressal system’ for sexual harassment on November 25.

A note on the initiative said, “#MeToo has in fact accentuated the need to re-look at what ails the prevention and redressal system for women facing sexual harassment at the workplace.Does the system not believe women? What about issues of male entitlement, boundaries in work relationships, due process? Is there a culture of impunity? How do we revisit consent and agency? Does power play a role in discouraging women from complaining? How exactly are the redressal systems working? What has been the role of the State in this process and what should it be to ensure that women are empowered to get their complaints redressed? How can we be inclusive in terms of the different locations we speak out from?Better still, can we try to understand?”

Advocate Albertina Almeida, lawyer and convenor of Saad Angan, told

The Hindu the

round table would include diverse voices, wherein, “every voice has a space to speak, be amplified, and where we listen, understand, share, learn and jointly plot the possible ways ahead.”

The ‘voices’ include workers and survivors from different sectors, supporters, members of complaints committees, people engaging with the law on sexual harassment, women looking at budgetary allocations, representatives of women’s groups, social justice groups, and human rights groups. Ms. Almeida said, “We will map the expressions about the system and the consensus that there is and then take a call on how to take this forward.”