Hema Committee Report: Why Were Portions Of Damning Document Redacted And What Do They Contain?

#MeToo In Mollywood: The recent public release of the Hema Committee report has ignited a wave of controversy with female artists of the Malayalam film industry calling for justice. While the report was submitted by the three-member committee in 2019, it was made public recently on August 19. The submitted report had around 290 pages revealing the horrific stories of women suffered at the hands of bigwigs of Mollywood. However, when it was made public, 55 pages, containing sexual harassment experiences, were redacted.

What does the redacted pages contain?

It is unknown why the pages were redacted before publishing for the public platform, but we do know what the pages had. The pages narrated the ordeal of the survivors and the reason behind their silence. On pages 58 to 72, victims shared that they kept silent fearing serious consequences, including threats to their life. The 72nd page explains how women are exploited by the men in cinema. "Men in cinema cannot even imagine that it is because of the passion for art and acting that a woman comes to the movie. But the impression is they are coming for fame and money and they will sleep with any man for a chance in a movie," the report states. It further mentioned that if the victim raises the issue they will be branded as troublemakers, impacting their future in the industry.

On the 80th page, the report opens up about online harassment of women in cinema faces, including remarks of sexual colour, rape threats and offensive photos. Pages 82 to 99 are missing and the topic skips directly at page number 100 which records the request made by WCC for the Internal Complaint Committee in every production unit of the cinema.

The aim behind the ICC is for women to freely approach the body when faced with such unfortunate incidents. “It is not because they have no grievance but they are not willing to go to such a forum with their grievances for various reasons,” the report observes.

Pages 113 to 122 have been redacted and skips to page 123 which urges to ban the artists and technicians which is illegal and unauthorised. Additionally, three points on the 30th page have been deleted as they highlighted the difficulties female artists face while shooting on the sets, owing to the lack of toilet facilities.

17 forms of exploitation detailed in the Hema Committee Report

According to the report, women actors who are ready to compromise are given code names, and those who are not ready to compromise are pushed out of the field. It further stated that anyone who does anything that upsets the 'mafia group' that controls Malayalam cinema is unofficially banned from the industry. Among the 17 issues faced by women working in the Malayalam film industry, some, as per the findings of the Justice Hema Committee report, are listed below:

-- A lack of basic facilities for women, including toilets and changing rooms at places of work.
-- Women lack safety at their workplace and accommodation.
-- The use of drugs and alcohol, disorderly conduct and misbehaviour at the place of work by men, which lead to gross indiscipline.
-- Being subject to demeaning or vulgar comments at places of work.
-- The non-execution of contracts between employer and employee to suit individual requirements.
-- The failure to pay the agreed remuneration.
-- Disparity of remuneration between men and women, and gender discrimination in remuneration.
-- Resistance/reluctance to allow women to work on the technical side of cinema.
-- Online harassment.
-- Lack of legal awareness about their own rights.
-- The absence of any legally constituted authority to redress their grievances.