Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Indian public servants asked for menstrual history

I am thinking this wouldn't fly in any jurisdiction with progressive privacy or human rights laws:

Public servants asked for menstrual history | NEWS.com.au

FEMALE civil servants in India are furious with new government guidelines that force them to list intimate details, including their menstrual history, in appraisal forms, a newspaper reported today.

The All-India Services Performance Appraisal Rules 2007 – which apply to senior government workers – ask female employees to record their last menstrual period, as well as when they last took maternity leave, the Hindustan Times said.

"The questions are too intrusive and have no bearing on our work," Seema Vyas, a senior bureaucrat in Maharashtra state, was quoted as saying.

India's Ministry of Personnel, which drew up the new appraisal guidelines, says it has not received any complaints and the addition of such questions was based on advice from health officials.

"I assume this will help evaluate the officer's fitness," Satyanand Mishra, the ministry's most senior bureaucrat, told the newspaper.

But women officers said it was "insensitive" and "irrelevant", adding they planned to protest.

"Health problems or aberrations are generally mentioned to assess the officer's physical fitness," said Chandra Iyengar, a senior civil servant.

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