In September 1992, Bhanwari Devi was working as a saathin (friend) to promote the government’s Women’s Development Program in her village in Rajasthan state. Her job involved going door-to-door, and counseling women on a range of issues, including hygiene, and discouraging practices such as dowry, female infanticide, and child marriage. When she tried to stop the marriage of a 9-month-old baby belonging to the dominant Gujjar caste in the village, she was ostracized and then assaulted and gang-raped by members of the Gujjar community. [vide:Geeta Pandey, “Bhanwari Devi: The rape that led to India's sexual harassment law,” BBC, March 17, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-39265653 (accessed August 6, 2019).]
The accused were acquitted by a lower court in Rajasthan and the appeal is still pending in Rajasthan High Court, 28 years later. However, her case spurred a movement and various activists and women’s rights groups filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court, demanding that “workplaces must be made safe for women and that it should be the responsibility of the employer to protect women employee at every step.”[vide: Vishaka and Ors. v. State of Rajasthan, Supreme Court of India, 1997, (7), SCC 323, August 1997, https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1031794/ (accessed July 10, 2019).]