I am here going to pen my views about Sexual Harassment of women who I feel

are a major cause of concern right now.

As Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said “To awaken the people, it is the women who must be
awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village move and the
Nation moves.” I feel that the position of women is the most important one in the
society as she is the beginning of everything. Without women who later become
mothers the society cannot exist. All this lavish luxuries that we all crave will become
ashes and crumble into dust and fade away as without women life cannot continue,
our future generation cannot continue. Yet it is the women who suffer the most. It is
the women against whom the majority of the atrocities are committed.
Sexual harassment is essentially forcing or bullying of a women of a sexual nature. It
can only include false and fake promises of rewards in exchange of sexual favours.
This is quite prevalent in the Bollywood and due to this a large numbers of women
who aspire for films suffer. Their innocence is slipped away and they are preyed upon.
This is also known as the Casting Couch which is the trading of sexual favors by an
employee, or subordinate to a superior in return for entry into an occupation, or for
other career advancement within an organization.
To name a few "casting couch" cases one instance occurred in India in 2004, when
actress Preeti Jain filed a police complaint alleging that film director Madhur
Bhandarkar had sexually exploited her for many years and made false promises to
cast her in a lead role in his next film. Another incident which is quite fresh is the case
of Shilpa Shinde where she accuses Sanjay Kohli, producer of serial Bhabhiji
Ghar Par Hai, for allegedly demanding sexual favours if she wanted to stay in the
show.
The landmark case of Vishaka and others v.State of Rajasthan of 1997 in which
Bhanwari Devi was gangraped brutally from upper class people because she tried to
protect a child from child marriage. The outcome of the Public Interest Litigation
were the Vishaka Guidelines which were later on superseded by the Sexual
Harassment of Women(Prohibition,Prevention and Redressal Act )2013 .
An amendment known as Criminal Law Amendment 2013 came into force on 3
April 2013 which provided for amendment of Indian Penal Code, on laws related to
sexual offences So what this new Act essentially did was it expressly recognised
certain acts as offences like, acid attack, sexual harassment, voyeurism, stalking have
been incorporated into the Indian Penal Code. Sexual harassment is now defined
under Section-354(a).
Thus so I would like to sum up by saying that women are the most important human
resource and are the key reason for evolving social change in the desired direction .If
we really want to eradicate their problems, we have to change our mind-sets.
Countless legislation can be passed which seek to protect the women from harsh
atrocities they suffer but if our mindset remains the same then we cannot expect to see
any change. If we cannot change ourselves then how can we expect our society to
change? It would be complete and utter hypocrisy on our part. So If we really want a
change then it has to start with us and Not from Today, Not from Tomorrow but from
Right now, from this very instant.