ABOUT US

The Committee for Gender Concerns (CGC) at IIT Hyderabad is an administrative body that operates with the mandate of ensuring a gender-safe and rights-aware campus. CGC is committed to maintaining a safe, healthy and just educational and work environment where no member of the community is excluded from opportunities or subjected to any form of gender-based discrimination and violence (whether physical, mental, psychological or sexual) on the basis of their sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

We assist the members of the IITH community in seeking relief, redressal, and counsel in situations where they encounter gender-based discrimination or challenges. We are committed towards implementing gender justice for persons of all gender identities across the spectrum. In the case of complaints of sexual harassment, we counsel the complainant, suggest on-campus resources for coping with their state of survivorship, advise them on the procedure for channelling their complaint to the IITH Internal Complaints Committee, and maintain complete confidentiality while seeking their permission to proceed with redressal options. We also facilitate the functioning of regulatory bodies such as the IITH Internal Complaints Committee by directing their attention to all complaints relating to sexual harassment after seeking the permission of the complainant.

We address complaints lodged by persons of all gender identities and sexual orientations. Like all members of the informed and sensitised global community, we emphasise the historical injustices to which persons of non-dominant gender identities and sexual orientations have historically been subjected and the structural inequalities within which they are forced to operate even in our current times. As such, the CGC recognises the disturbing situations and traumatic challenges that such conventionally subordinated demographic units have to navigate in a workplace situation which often puts them at risk of coercion, discrimination, and harassment. We are therefore committed to redressing these wrongs that are faced by a disproportionately high number of persons of non-dominant gender identities and sexual orientation in all workplace situations including higher educational institutions. We also recognize that harassment/violence can take place across all gender identities, including between persons of the same gender identity.

We urge all members of the IITH community—whether students, staff, or faculty—to approach us for advice, redressal, or support in any kind of gender-related challenges they may be facing in connection with the campus.

We also call upon all members of the IITH community to inform themselves about our national laws, as well as international covenants to which India is a signatory, that ensures human rights protections to women, the ‘third gender,’ and persons of all sexual orientations—constitutional and legal frameworks that call for our commitment to a campus free from gender/sexuality-based discrimination and violence. The most recent and necessary legal provisions (laws, court rulings) have been made available here. We request all members of the IITH community—faculty, non-teaching staff, students—to play a proactive and sensitive role in preventing and responding to such forms of injustice by interrupting chains of harassment, reporting cases that need attention, supporting survivors in all ways possible, and helping maintain confidentiality in all situations.

In our chain of functioning, we ensure confidentiality and impartiality by reporting only to the senior-most administration and avoiding conflict-of-interest situations in the resolution of complaints.