The Union Cabinet has approved the introduction of the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010 in the Parliament to ensure a safe environment for women at work places, both in public and private sectors whether organised or unorganized. A review of the proposed Bill is available on this blog http://indialawyers.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/protection-of-women-against... Snippets from the blog: "The Bill provides protection not only to women who are employed but also to any woman who enters the workplace as a client, customer, apprentice, and daily wageworker or in ad-hoc capacity. Students, research scholars in colleges/university and patients in hospitals have also been covered. Further, the Bill seeks to cover workplaces in the unorganised sectors." "Since there is a possibility that during the pendency of the enquiry the woman may be subject to threat and aggression, she has been given the option to seek interim relief in the form of transfer either of her own or the respondent or seek leave from work." This Bill will be a relief to the employees working in IT and BPO sectors who face harassment of all forms on a daily basis. Though some of the IT companies already have policies against Sexual Harassment, we still come across incidents of harassment as the deployment of such policies have been ineffective in giving confidence to the employees. More so because the government doesn't mandate such policies and the implementation involves on third party private individuals. It has to be seen whether this Bill will make a difference to us.