(Reuters) – Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Thursday it will set up a committee, initially comprising five female senior executives, to investigate sexual harassment complaints.
The move comes days after a female employee went public with an 11-page account on Alibaba’s intranet saying her manager and a client sexually assaulted her, and that superiors and human resources did not take her report seriously.
Alibaba said on Monday it had fired the manager accused of sexual assault, but was blasted by China’s state media for not acting until the accuser went public.
The company said its Alibaba Group Committee on Workplace Environment, to be chaired by Group Deputy Chief People Officer Jane Jiang, will be the decision-making body for matters related but not limited to sexual harassment prevention and will report directly to its board of directors.
Alibaba said it has also created a sexual harassment prevention emergency support hotline. (https://bit.ly/3iGdDUx)
(Reporting by Nilanjana Basu in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
