After years of delay, the Kerala government on Monday, August 19 finally published the Justice Hema Committee report, which looked into the issues faced by women in the Malayalam film industry. The 235-page report has pointed out various issues ranging from unsafe film sets to lack of toilet facilities for women on film sets to the presence of ‘casting couch’, a euphemism for sexual harassment in the film industry.
The report also brought out disturbing details about how women are not safe in the accommodations provided to them during the period of the film shooting. Several women in the industry have stated that while going to work, they are often accompanied by their parents or close relatives, “since demand for sex is made along with the offer for a chance in cinema,” and hence, they are apprehensive of their safety in their workplace.
“In most of the hotels where they are staying, the doors are knocked by the men working in the cinema, who would be mostly under intoxication (sic),” says the report.
Many women have also stated that the knocking is aggressive and that the men sometimes repeatedly bang on the door with force. “On many occasions, they felt that the door would collapse and men would make an entry into the room by force. So unless women take somebody from the family when they go for work, they fear that they will not be safe at the workplace,” adds the report.
The Justice Hema Committee was formed by the Kerala government in 2017 based on a petition by the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) to study the challenges faced by women in the industry. In December 2019, the committee submitted its findings to the Kerala government, but the report was not made public. On July 6, the State Information Commission (SIC) passed an order directing the state to issue the committee's report to RTI applicants, after redacting information that could identify individuals mentioned in the report, as prohibited under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.