SHe-Box

What is SHe-Box?

SHe-Box, the Sexual Harassment electronic Box, is the Government of India's single-window online portal for complaints of sexual harassment of women at the workplace. SHe-Box is owned and operated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and operates under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, commonly called the POSH Act, and the rules made under it.

SHe-Box was first launched in 2017 for central government employees. A rebuilt and far wider portal was launched on 29 August 2024, extending coverage to state governments, the private sector and the unorganised sector, and adding workplace registration, committee mapping and real-time tracking.

What SHe-Box does

• Acts as a central repository of workplace sexual harassment complaints drawn from both Internal Committees (ICs), which every workplace with more than 10 employees must constitute, and district Local Committees (LCs), which handle complaints from smaller and unorganised workplaces.
• Routes each complaint to the committee that actually has jurisdiction, so a woman does not have to work out which body to approach.
• Tracks status for the complainant and for a designated nodal officer at each workplace, with alerts when a case crosses the statutory 90-day inquiry period.
• Publishes committee details, since states and districts are required to keep Local Committee, District Officer and nodal officer information current.

What SHe-Box is not

SHe-Box does not conduct an inquiry and does not decide a case. The statutory inquiry, the finding and the recommendation stay with the Internal Committee or the Local Committee. SHe-Box is the filing, routing and monitoring layer around that process.

Who is eligible for SHe-Box?

You can file a complaint if:

• You are a woman who has faced sexual harassment at a workplace.
• The workplace is in the central government, a state or union territory government, a public sector undertaking, a private company, or the unorganised sector: SHe-Box accepts complaints across sectors.
• You were at the workplace in any capacity. The POSH Act covers regular employees, contractual and daily-wage workers, apprentices, interns, probationers and volunteers, and does not require a formal employment contract.
• The complaint is filed within three months of the incident or of the last incident in a series. The committee may extend this by a further three months where it is satisfied that circumstances prevented earlier filing.

Who cannot apply / is not eligible

• Men and other complainants are not eligible. The POSH Act 2013 protects only aggrieved women. A man facing harassment at work must use his employer's internal service rules or the ordinary criminal law.
• Harassment with no workplace connection cannot be filed here, for example harassment by a neighbour or on the street. Call 112 or 181, or go to the police.
• Complaints of other workplace grievances: pay, promotion, transfer, general bullying without a sexual element; are not POSH complaints and are not covered.
• Employers cannot file a complaint on behalf of themselves; they register on the portal as workplaces and their committees receive complaints.

Where the woman cannot file herself because of physical or mental incapacity or death, the POSH Act permits a legal heir or a prescribed person to file on her behalf.

What do you need to file on SHe-Box?

How to apply on SHe-Box: filing a complaint

1. Open the portal at shebox.wcd.gov.in, or use the complaint option in the Mission Shakti mobile app.
2. Create an account with your name, a valid email ID and a mobile number, and verify it with the OTP sent to that mobile number.
3. Select "Register your complaint" on the home page.
4. Enter the workplace details, employer name, address and sector, so that the portal can identify the Internal Committee or the district Local Committee with jurisdiction.
5. Describe the incident: the date or dates, the place, the name and designation of the respondent, and what occurred. Be specific about dates, since the three-month limitation runs from the incident.
6. Upload any supporting material: screenshots, emails, messages or a list of witnesses. A complaint is valid without documentary evidence.
7. Submit the complaint. It goes directly to the concerned Internal or Local Committee, and you receive a complaint reference.
8. Track the status by logging back into your account. The committee must complete its inquiry within 90 days; if it does not, the portal alerts the designated nodal officer.

How an employer registers on SHe-Box

1. Nominate a nodal officer at head office level and register the organisation on shebox.wcd.gov.in.
2. Have the registration verified by the District Nodal Officer, who confirms the workplace's credentials.
3. Upload the Internal Committee details. The Presiding Officer, members and the external member required by the POSH Act.
4. Register branches and units through the hierarchical access enabled after head office verification.
5. Keep the details current and act on the alerts the portal sends when a complaint approaches or crosses the 90-day inquiry limit.

District Officers have a parallel duty to keep Local Committee and District Officer details updated on the portal, so that a woman in an unorganised-sector workplace can see which committee will hear her complaint.

Help and support

• Women Helpline: 181
• Emergency response: 112
• National Legal Services Authority legal aid helpline: 15100
• Child Helpline: 1098
• Portal: shebox.wcd.gov.in

Filing on SHe-Box is free. No agent, consultant or lawyer is required, and a complainant's identity is protected by the confidentiality provisions of the POSH Act. If the incident also amounts to a criminal offence, filing on SHe-Box does not stop you from lodging a police complaint as well. The two routes run in parallel. Related crisis support is available at a One Stop Centre and through Mission Shakti.