|
To
Mr C R Irani,
Editor-in-chief,
The Statesman,
Kolkata
February 18, '03
Sir,
A member of the Bengal Network of Women Journalists,
Rina Mukherji, a former employee of The Statesman,
has complained to us on February 9th, 2003, that
she had been repeatedly sexually harassed by Ishan
Joshi, the news co-ordinator, while she was working
there.
Since she resisted the sexual overtures, Mr Joshi
started to harass her professionally, as is the
pattern with most sexual harassment cases in the
workplace. Mr Joshi also insisted that she resign
from her services if she did not comply with his
advances. Ms Mukherji's services were eventually
terminated in October, 2002.
For Rina Mukherji, who has worked with reputed
newspaper houses, it was the first experience
of its kind in a career spanning 15 years. It
has taken her months to come to terms with and
address this trauma. After being dismissed from
The Statesman, she had even contemplated
suicide and had to take recourse to psychological
counselling to overcome her depression.
As is the pattern with most women who face sexual
harassment in the workplace by male peers and
seniors, it takes months, sometimes years, to
verbalise or confront the injustice and articulate
it. It means not only coming out of denial, but
also taking on the added pressure of social stigma
and the intimidation from institutional power
structures.
Perhaps this continuous injustice would not have
reached such proportions in a media house like
The Statesman that has historically shown
sensitivity to the issue of human rights, had
a Sexual Harassment Complaints Committee been
in place, as per the Supreme Court Guidelines
of August 13, 1997. This would have emboldened
Rina to speak up earlier and seek justice.
We are certain that if you had some knowledge
of this incident, then something as unjust as
this would not have happened in The Statesman.
We have felt the need to bring this to your notice
with the hope that justice will be done and the
human dignity of the journalist restored as is
expected of a media house of repute.
Yours
Sincerely,
Ananya
Chatterjee
Rajshri
Dasgupta
Co-ordinators
Bengal Network
More
on Rina's case:
Back
to Network news index
|
