Adv. Bindiya Rao(She/Her)
Adv. Bindiya Rao is a legal professional and a practising advocate with 6+ years of experience. She has finished her Bachelor’s in Law from M. S. Ramaiah College of Law and has done her LLM in International Human Rights Law with subjects like feminist theory, Child Law, Terrorism and state crime from the Queen Mary University of Law, London, United Kingdom
She is currently acting as External Member (EM) on Internal Committees (ICs), constituted under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition & Redressal) Act & Rules 2013 (‘POSH Law’), of over 35+ organizations across sectors in Bengaluru. She has advised, handled and consulted over 50+ complaints and grievances of sexual harassment. Bindiya has been instrumental in satisfactory completion of various inquiries and conciliations navigating through challenges and complexities of each case with appropriate documentation at each step of the process along with report writing.
She uses her experience of handling complaints in facilitating trainings, creating awareness among employees, managers, leadership and building capacities among IC members on legalities and behavioural aspects of law under the POSH Law. She has designed and curated social media campaigns, involved with developing web based learning modules to raise awareness on sexual harassment, consent, importance of reporting abuse and stigmas attached to it, gender equality and intersectional feminism.
She has conducted trainings and awareness sessions among private companies, educational institutions (IIT Kanpur), schools and government stakeholders – police personnel and magistrates on POSH, domestic violence act, POCSO and rights of Muslim women rights. She discusses intersection of violence with gender identity and sexual orientation and advocates for the cause through Equilibrio Advisory’s internal ERG and being an ally to queer & trans folx.
In the past, she has worked with international (Amnesty International) and national NGOs (Janaagraha – Bangalore and Majlis – Mumbai), government schools, shelter homes and juvenile homes to raise awareness on comprehensive sex education and violence against women and children.
During her time at Majlis, as a litigation associate, she has dealt with cases of domestic violence, dowry harassment, injunctions, custody of the child and other POCSO matters, in both Mumbai and Bangalore. She has experience in Constitutional writs, Matrimonial, Criminal, Civil, Property/Land Acquisition, Employment Laws and Commercial Litigation.