The Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) has formed an independent complaints committee to address complaints of sexual harassment and ensure a safe environment for female cricketers.
Cricbuzz had that the committee was yet to be approved as all its members had not been finalized. However, BCB’s complaint committee secretary, Chandra Banerjee, told Cricbuzz on Tuesday (November 3) that they have started their operations with four members, and the fifth member to be included in due course.
Barrister Rashna Imam, a member of the convening committee led by Tamim Iqbal who headed the women’s wing before the last BCB election, will head the five-member committee. Barrister Nazia Kabir, Barrister Anita Gazi Rahman and Zarin Mahmud Hossain have also been named in the committee. A former cricketer will join the committee as its fifth member.
It is understood that keeping BCB personnel off the committee is a deliberate move meant to shield investigations from internal influence and conflicts of interest. The committee has been set up in line with a 2009 High Court directive.
“The safeguarding policies are made in line with the international regulations and also with our
domestic
laws. Now the safeguarding policy has defined a range of actions which is not acceptable, and if any mishap happens how a player can approach us and how we maintain confidentiality and fairness in the process. The policy is all about our process,” said Chandra.
“First of all, BCB has zero tolerance towards any kind of abuse, sexual harassment or whatever. To implement this, we have specified nicely within the policy where to reach out. This is step one. The second thing is that this has already been circulated in the women’s wing. Thirdly, if you visit our website, a pop-up banner suddenly appears on the website. So what does that mean? We are making this zero tolerance against sexual harassment and we are taking this very seriously, that as soon as you visit the website, you instantly get access to where you need to file your complaint. Besides this, we are also working on a lot of things to publicize this, which you will also see very soon,” she said.
“I want to remove the fear among them, that’s one. Secondly, I want to assure them that, for example, if someone complains to me now as a cricket player, you might have some hesitation in your mind, like, will this get a lot of publicity or will people know about it? So there are many mechanisms. For example, the legal wordings in my policy or our policy might not be clear for someone who is not from a legal or commercial background, right? So I also have to explain the policy to them completely of what does the policy entail, how we are protecting you. Because it’s their right to get a safe environment, a sound environment, a respectable environment,” she said.
The BCB will also hold a workshop to open a direct line between the committee and the cricketers, so players can reach out at any time and speak up if they need to.
