Weeks after the publication of the Hema Committee report, members of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) met Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan on the morning of Wednesday, September 11, to press for further action. The Committee that studied the issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry, was formed in 2017, at the imploration of the WCC, in the aftermath of a brutal sexual assault on a woman actor.
In a letter to the CM, the WCC has urged the government to be sensitive about the privacy of the women who have spoken about their experiences before the Hema Committee. The request comes in the wake of the government forming a Special Investigation Team of police officers to probe the issues in the report. Two days ago, the High Court of Kerala asked the government to hand over the entire Hema Committee report including audio recordings to the SIT, and also asked the SIT to submit a report on what action they will take against cognizable offenses.
The WCC has also asked the CM to bring the Malayalam film industry under the scope of the POSH Act -- Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.
After the WCC’s earlier attempts, including going to the court, Internal Committees (ICs) under the POSH Act were made mandatory in every film set. According to the court ruling, very movie production should have a sexual harassment complaint redressal cell, and no film should be registered without providing a certificate that such a cell was constituted.
All that happened was the formation of a 27-member monitoring committee, with members from various film organisations, led by the Kerala Film Chamber of Commerce. The WCC has asked that this committee be reconstituted as a statutory committee with a woman president and mostly women members, as required by the POSH Act.
Appreciating the government initiative to fund women filmmakers in a project by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation, the WCC urged the continuance of the project with bigger funds and the involvement of the women in every stage of production.
The letter to the CM also highlights the need for giving more girls opportunities to study in film schools, with scholarships and other fee benefits. It is also important that women hold key positions in government initiatives related to cinema, they wrote.
The WCC is preparing a report taking into account the Hema Committee report, the Adoor Committee report and the Shift Focus document on issues of women in the industry that the WCC had prepared with the women's organisation Sakhi. They are also preparing instructions that should be part of the film policy that the government has recently entrusted a committee to prepare.
The Hema Committee report, submitted to the Government, as early as December 2019, was made public only in August this year, after repeated criticism and a direct order from the State Information Commission, upheld by the High Court. A redacted version was released on August 19, after which a number of women came out to speak about the various degrees of harassment they faced in cinema. Two days ago the High Court came down harshly on the government for the prolonged inaction on the report.
