New Delhi: In a move that aims to curb online harassment of women, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Tuseday said that abusing woman in cyberspace would be treated as violence.
In an interview with a leading new channel, Maneka said," The ministry of woman and child welfare has already written to the home ministry to come up with a code for online behaviour."
Underlining that women have to deal with tremendous viciousness online, Gandhi said that it was a journalist's complaint that had brought the problem to light. But they were now sensitised to the threats that many faced in the cyberworld and it would be treated as violence.
Initially, the operators would not come and talk to us and cooperate about giving details. But now they have come on board."
The union minister had on Tuesday released the draft of National Policy for Women, 2016 which seeks to address emerging challenges confronting women, including protection against cyber crime, security to surrogate mothers and bringing gender sensitivity in family planning policies.
She also said that a proposal by the women and child development ministry to increase maternity leave period has been pending with the labour ministry for over six months.
She said her ministry has been following up, on a "daily" basis, the proposal to increase the current 12 weeks leave to 26 weeks and also clarified that it is still pending perhaps because the labour ministry is "putting it in a larger labour laws perspective".
"The labour ministry had agreed to it, but it has been there since six and a half months.
The minister also said that a bill to give more teeth to the National Commission for Women (NCW) also remains pending.
