Click to play videoHyderabad: In Andhra Pradesh's capital, a female BPO executive's safety depends upon the dress she wears! At least that's what the cab drivers would want the employees to believe.
Transporters providing services to BPOs feel that the drivers are being provoked by "flashy dressing" of female staff.
They are now talking about implementation of a dress code for female call center executives so that the drivers will not get provoked and harm the women they ferry.
The security of women working in the BPO sector came under sharp scruity after the brutal rape and murder of a woman by her driver in Bangalore and the subsequent abuse of another woman BPO employee - Pallavi- by her driver in Hydderabad.
After the incidents, many tried to sell the idea about Pallavi's sleazy dressing and her drunken state - assumptions based on the fact that she was returning from a party.
However, the fact remains that she was dressed in a salwar suit and was not drunk either.
"We think they should wear full dresses instead of short tops and mini skirts. Anyone's mind can get deviated with such dresses," Cab driver, Hamir, says.
Shockingly, the BPO top bosses, too, seem to endorse the drivers’ view. Citing scientific reasons for provocation, they insist on the importance of female employees dressing less provocatively.
There are also plans to launch an educational programme about dressing for BPO employees across the country.
"The body chemistry of a human being in the day time and the body chemistry during night are quite different. Keeping this in mind, there should be a small definition of the dress code, not a major one, but a dress code which is well understood is required," National President, Union for Information and Technology Enabled Services in India, P P Naidu, says.
However, the city police pushed aside the archaic views and insisted on the necessity of sensitising and training cab drivers instead.
"It is not the dress code that affects the safety. It is the mentality, it is the gender sensitivity and also some times carelessness. Those are the issues that need to be addressed," Assistant Commissioner of Police (Crime), Hyderabad, Rajiv Trivedi, said.
The Indian Penal Code is stringent when it comes to laws pertaining to the protection of womens' rights.
It states that forcefully indulging in a sexual intercourse is rape – even if it is with a sex worker.
However, with such outrageous demands from India's BPO industry, it is amply clear that the issue of security of women employees is still hanging in balance and there is need for an attitudinal change in the society rather than a change in attire.
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