Alibaba Sets Up Harassment Hotline as Rape Probe Nears End

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. will arrange a hotline and create a crew devoted to investigating sexual harassment complaints, after an worker accused her supervisor of rape and ignited a debate about misogyny throughout China’s tech business.

The e-commerce big launched an investigation when an Alibaba worker accused her supervisor of sexually assaulting her after an evening of heavy ingesting whereas on a enterprise journey in July. That inquiry has virtually concluded and its outcomes will quickly be introduced, the corporate mentioned on its official weblog Thursday. Alibaba has in the meantime established a committee to police its office surroundings, comprised of senior feminine executives together with chief monetary officer Maggie Wu and chief folks officer Judy Tong, who was publicly censured Monday for the corporate’s mishandling of the incident.

The worker’s allegations, which went viral on China’s tightly managed web, have reverberated throughout the higher echelons of Alibaba and in C-suites throughout a lot of the nation. The accused Alibaba supervisor has been fired, two senior executives on the e-commerce big have resigned and chief govt officer Daniel Zhang has issued a exceptional mea culpa, calling the corporate’s dealing with of the incident a “humiliation.”

In a nation that’s been gradual to soak up classes from the worldwide #MeToo motion, the episode has triggered what many say is an extended overdue examination of the methods Chinese language ladies are too typically handled at work: ignored, objectified, compelled to participate in male-dominated rituals like ingesting with shoppers and brushed apart when reporting abuse. It comes at a time when a lot of China’s company world, significantly the tech business, is underneath intense authorities scrutiny on points starting from anti-monopoly violations to the remedy of low-wage staff.

“The perfect reflection is motion,” Alibaba mentioned in a blogpost. “It’s our shared duty to create a mutually respectful office surroundings.”

The newly shaped committee will in flip steer an unbiased crew liable for investigating complaints and experiences associated to sexual harassment and assault. The corporate additionally vowed to revise its code of conduct and enhance tips for worker engagement with prospects and companions, to assist workers draw clear boundaries between work and social interplay.

The Alibaba incident has highlighted pervasive mistreatment of feminine staff throughout firms in China, the place the #MeToo motion has did not take off as extensively as in Silicon Valley or elsewhere. Zhang, in a prolonged pre-dawn memo Monday, described an outpouring of feelings on Alibaba’s intranet and vowed to step up protections for ladies throughout the corporate whereas addressing its failure to behave.

Alibaba grew to become the highest-profile image of abuses thought to be prevalent all through Chinese language companies and at tech corporations, rooted in a hard-charging surroundings that usually prioritizes achievement over tradition. The #MeToo motion first got here to prominence there in 2018 when allegations towards a professor at a Beijing college had been revealed on social media. Since then, a lot of allegations have been made towards lecturers, environmentalists and journalists.

President Xi Jinping has pledged to battle office discrimination amid a shrinking workforce, even because the nation cracks down on feminist activists and scrubs the net of delicate #MeToo content material. China bans job discrimination primarily based on gender and stipulates the significance of equal alternative. But a scarcity of enforcement means there’re few repercussions to discriminatory practices.

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