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Sexual harassment, rape allegations rock Greenpeace
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By Preetha Nair New Delhi, June 15
Environment rights NGO
Greenpeace India could be in for more trouble as an ex-staffer has gone
public with allegations of rape and sexual harassment by her colleagues.
The
organisation’s inaction against the perpetrators has spurred more
female ex-employees to come out with similar accusations. Now, the NGO
is at the receiving end with activists lambasting the organisation’s
irresponsible handling of the cases.
Recently, Greenpeace was in
the news after the government froze it's accounts for non-compliance of
norms. The Delhi High Court, however, released two of its accounts so
that it could function.
In an article published on a web forum
last week, an ex-employee (name withheld) of Greenpeace alleged that she
had to leave her job in 2013 after being sexually harassed and raped by
her colleagues.
Narrating her ordeal, she said that it started a
year after she had joined the NGO at their Bengaluru office. The first
incident happened during an official trip in October 2012. "I got a call
from a senior colleague at 11 pm, asking me to vacate my room and
insisting that I sleep in his suite. In another incident, he approached
me physically despite my discomfort, insisted on force-feeding me
birthday cake,’ she told IANS.
Though she registered a written
complaint with the HR manager, she did not receive any verbal or written
communication from the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) of the
organisation, which looks into sexual harassment cases. To her shock,
she learnt that the person was a serial offender and no action had been
taken against him despite his misbehaviour with two other female
employees.
However, she said, she was blamed for registering the
complaint. "Once in an official meeting, in my absence, two senior
employees indulged in character assassination against me. Even some
female colleagues, part of the ICC, made me feel that I was at fault,
that I didn’t know how to ‘set boundaries’," she said.
However,
matters came to a head in 2013. "It was after a party, when a male
colleague whom I knew quite well found me unconscious and raped me. You
cannot imagine the pain and fear I went through. I was terrified to
speak and I knew even if I had, no one in this organisation would come
to my aid. I did not have the strength to report my rape, neither to the
police, nor to my employers. How could I, when the processes had failed
me once already?" she asked. Traumatised, she left the NGO after a few
months.
She said it took her long to overcome the incident, and
finally, she decided to tell her story through a Facebook post in
February this year. Immediately after her post, Greenpeace issued an
apology on their website and promised her to re-investigate the case in
an adequate manner. Admitting the lax attitude in dealing with the case
in 2012, the statement said, "The victim deserves both an apology and a
meticulous examination of what happened."
However, the victim
pointed out that the NGO’s subsequent actions exposed their empty talk.
"The ICC, which convened in March, recommended the termination of the
offender, but the executive director overrode the decision on some
pretext and the only thing I received was a written apology from the
molester,’’ she said.
Supporting the claims of the victim,
another ex-senior manager Reema Ganguly, who was a part of the ICC, told
IANS that she quit Greenpeace in May after executive director Samit
Aich overrode the committee’s recommendation. "The committee’s
suggestion of terminating the molester was overturned by the executive
director, and they dismantled the committee which was only three months
old, whereas the duration (for such a committee) is for three years. It
was very clear that the committee is an eyewash by the NGO,’’ said
Ganguly.
However, Aich defended the decision to dismantle the
committee. ''We came to know that the committee decisions were leaked to
many people in the office. So I sought legal opinion on this and I was
told that since its leaked, the decision stands invalid. So we dissolved
the committee and reconstituted it,'' said Aich.
When asked why
they did not follow the committee's decision of terminating the
offender, Aich said a strong warning was given to the person. “I have
given a strong warning to the person and as a result, he has put in his
papers. I admit that there have been flaws in our earlier system and we
will tighten our disciplinary actions in future,'' he added.
Reacting
to the allegations, Programme Director for Greenpeace India, Divya
Raghunandan, told IANS that the former employees had raised some valid
issues and that they will investigate it in a "serious manner".
Acknowledging that there were flaws in the earlier system, Raghunandan
said, "When we revisited the cases, we felt that it should have been
handled in a better way."
Asserting that they were re-evaluating
the overall procedures for handling complaints of sexual harassment,
she said that the employee in question had resigned. "We have
reconstituted the ICC and ordered an audit into the old cases. The
implicated employee has put in his papers already,’’ she said.
However,
activists and former employees question the failure of the NGO in
punishing a serial offender and protecting him for years.
Holding
the executive director of Greenpeace India responsible for the shabby
handling of the cases, Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India
Progressive Women’s Association, said that the events had tarnished the
image of the NGO. "Greenpeace failed to stand by their promise of
punishing the offender. They disbanded a committee, which recommended
punishment for the molester. The NGO is muzzling voices of dissent. They
have stretched the cases for so many years. The punishment has to be
spelt out clearly,’’ Krishnan said adding that they have written to
Greenpeace International and were waiting for their response to act
further.
Voicing similar concerns, Usha Saxena, a former
employee, alleged that she was forced to quit Greenpeace because she
took a stand against the rampant cases of harassment in the NGO. Saxena,
who joined Greenpeace in 2009, said that her protests against sexist
jokes and remarks fell on deaf ears. "I filed a misconduct complaint
against senior HR director for making discriminatory and threatening
remarks about my gender, my age and ordering me to seek ‘psychological
counselling'. For that, I was bullied out in 2013,’’ Saxena told IANS.
Another
ex-staffer (name withheld) also said that she was harassed by the same
person implicated in the first incident. She said she resigned in March
2015 after inaction by the NGO. "He made some objectionable comments in
front of many senior colleagues, including the executive director. No
one reacted, rather they were all amused. "Though she registered a
complaint with the HR Department the next day, it met the same fate as
the previous ones," she told IANS. She also said she would take further
legal action if the offender is not punished.
(Preetha Nair can be contacted at [email protected])