The Kerala High Court has directed the film production houses to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in all film production houses according to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act, 2013.
The order was issued after considering the plea filed by Women in Cinema Collective in 2018 seeking an order to form an ICC in the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) for addressing the sexual harassment complaints. The Court further held a film unit to be workplace and directed that film production units have to constitute ICC as per the Act. The Court also has expressed a desire that various organizations of the Malayalam film industry form a joint committee to deal with women’s complaints to ensure a safe working place for them.
The HC also noted that the production unit is the workplace of an individual film and therefore, each production unit would have to constitute an Internal Complaints Committee.