Safe Workplaces or Symbolic Law? An Empirical Study of the Implementation of the POSH Act, 2013 in Tamil Nadu

Author

Banu Priya G, Logashri D, Sumaiya Fathima S


Abstract

 The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (the POSH Act) requires every employer with ten or more employees to constitute an Internal Committee (IC) and requires district authorities to constitute Local Committees (LC) for establishments that fall outside the IC requirement. More than a decade after enactment, compliance remains uneven and awareness among women workers is low. This paper examines how the Act is implemented in Tamil Nadu, covering the constitution and functioning of Internal Committees, the conduct of inquiries, annual reporting, and the role of District Officers. It is a documentary empirical study that triangulates three bodies of published evidence: official data placed before the Madras High Court in 2024 and 2025, national surveys, and Tamil Nadu RTI and sectoral studies, read with the judicial record. The State reported 56,951 Internal Committees by 2025, up from 19,475 a year earlier, yet the Court recorded only 305 complaints across those earlier committees, and a Labour Department survey found committees in 6,196 of 20,069 covered private establishments (30.9%). National surveys indicate that about a quarter of employees do not know whether their employer has a POSH policy and that roughly 70% of victims do not report, and a study of Tamil Nadu textile workers found that only 20% of interstate migrant women reported a committee at their workplace. The paper argues that formal compliance outpaces substantive compliance, identifies structural gaps in monitoring, training and trust, and proposes reforms to strengthen enforcement and accountability.


Keywords

sexual harassment at workplace; POSH Act 2013; Internal Committee; Local Committee; symbolic compliance; Tamil Nadu; unorganised sector



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References


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