In Unsafe Systems, We Are All Survivors

Who is a survivor in the systems we have created? Women? Trans and non-binary persons? Minority communities? Children? Men?

In the last 13 months at TrustIn, I’ve been shadowing our Founder, Meghana Srinivas, and supporting the handling of case escalations under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (POSH Act, 2013). Over the last two years, there’s been a very steep incline in the number of cases we’ve received and redressed - and the period from October 2024 to May 2025 saw the highest number of cases we had at a given time. 

As practitioners, we always maintain that case escalations are a good thing, trust in the system is increasing, survivors and employees have more courage to move forward with escalations. 

At the same time, the physical and emotional toll on all Parties involved in a case - be it the Complainant, the Respondent or the Internal Committee (IC) - working to get to the bottom of it, to find a just and workable solution - this must be addressed. A complaint is difficult to navigate, it causes anxious, traumatic feelings, and complex legal procedures sometimes leave us with no answers, an outcome that serves nobody except perhaps the guilty party (whoever it may be, and if there is one).

Organisational readiness and risk assessments are critical to solve these challenges, to come to a point where cultures and systems are supportive, compassionate and open, and boundaries respected, so we can prevent cases altogether. 

Of course, this is the ideal - as a practitioner in this space for nearly ten years now, I recognise that. It’s equally important, though, that we set this ideal as our North Star and work towards it. 

It’s Pride Month, and despite more rainbows on organisational logos everywhere than ever, there remain mindset, cultural and policy barriers in all our systems that are exclusive and discriminatory. Shifting these is the real work to be done. 

We’ve all been made, remade and unmade by years of socialisation and cultural reinforcements. And the result of this socialisation leads to biases that I have seen play out in the most predictable patterns - trans women seeking support denied basic empathy because their organisation didn’t feel their pain and trauma. Women left with no support systems because their case fell outside the ambit of IC jurisdiction and inaccessible Local Committees. An empathetic and intentional organisation leader in pain, because despite initiatives to create safe cultures, there was backlash from the people in their organisation.

Where do we begin? 

• Let’s stop fooling ourselves or thinking that ticking off the boxes on the compliance and policy checklist is sufficient. Let’s dig deeper into our organisations, take responsibility to bring mindset shifts among the people we bring together, to do enough that we don’t do harm. Study our culture, study our people, listen to what is being promised but what actually transpires. 

• Training once a year is not sufficient - we’re in the most multicultural and multigenerational workplaces we’ve ever seen in the country so far, making the need for intersectional solutions imperative. Compliance asks for one training, but arriving at common ground on what constitutes safe culture? That’s an ongoing process - conversations, safe spaces to speak out, feedback loops, and multiple, ongoing, progressively more intensive training sessions. 

• Focus on our intentionality and start rethinking our annual budgets to ensure safety and inclusion of all employees, but particularly marginalised individuals - who face difficulties based on caste, religion, sexuality, gender identity and expression, ability and more on an everyday basis. Can our space be one where microaggressions and biases do not play out? Can that be our intentionality? 

• Invest in mental health and wellbeing of teams, of leadership and especially Internal Committees, which deal with daily pressures of their job descriptions alongside complaints that could be triggering for them, as well. 

• If our POSH policy speaks of the safety of women, can we have policies that also protect people with diverse gender identities? Can we look to build partnerships and networks that reflect and enforce these values, and look to dismantle power structures? 

Safety, sexual harassment, misconduct, gender discrimination - these are not just gender issues, these are labour issues. And we cannot, in 2025, deny basic safety and human rights to those who have put in years of labour to get our culture and society to the place we are in today. So, along with our rainbow logos, let’s begin working towards achieving the meaning behind those flags - built by communities after years of struggle, not as a marketing tool, but to raise awareness and voices for meaningful inclusion in every sphere. 

I started this blog with a question: who is a survivor? The truth is, I should have framed it differently: in an unsafe, threatening and often violent set of systems, who isn’t a survivor?

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At TrustIn, we're fully committed to supporting your journey, working with you to build harm-free, inclusive workplaces where everyone can thrive.

Our workshops on POSH and leadership focus on fostering cultures of safety and accountability. Through practical strategies, organizations can understand, analyze, and address intersectional experiences.

If you’re ready to take the next step toward a safer, more inclusive workplace, reach out to us at hello@trustin.co.in. We’re here to support you in every step of your compliance journey.

This blog post has been written by Nitya Sriram, Sr. Program Lead at TrustIn.