BBC journalist: Senior colleagues harassed me
Rajini Vaidyanathan, a BBC correspondent based in Washington, yesterday said she had been subjected to sexually inappropriate advances from three senior colleagues. The BBC was accused of ‘hushing up’ the subsequent sacking of a senior journalist
THE BBC was plunged into a sexual harassment row last night after it emerged it hushed up the sacking of a senior journalist who bombarded women with explicit text messages.
Rajini Vaidyanathan, a correspondent based in Washington, disclosed yesterday how she had been subjected to sexually inappropriate advances from three married colleagues. One of the journalists was subsequently fired, although Ms Vaidyanathan only found out several years later. The BBC has refused to identify the individual.
Ms Vaidyanathan posted an article yesterday on the BBC’S website, and gave a similar account to the Today programme on Radio 4, of examples of sexual harassment suffered during a 15year career at the corporation.
She decided to go public in the wake of the scandal over Harvey Weinstein, posting her experiences on Twitter under the hashtag “Metoo”. The Metoo hashtag has been used by more than 700,000 women outing themselves as victims of sexual abuse or harassment.
Ms Vaidyanathan, 38, posted on a BBC blog: “A few years ago a married former colleague of mine began sending me messages containing explicit details of his sexual desires.”
She was “horrified” by his unwanted advances but fearful they would have to work together again, she “politely” told him his feelings might be “normal” in the hope “he’d go away”.
But, Ms Vaidyanathan said: “His messages continued and became more creepy. He said he’d fantasised about sex with powerful women, and how he wanted to cheat on his wife... I felt disgusted but kept it to myself.” A female colleague at the BBC later confided in her that she too had received the “dirty messages”. Ms Vaidyanathan said: “Soon after, I heard he’d been fired. Another colleague had filed a complaint against him.”
Another colleague – twice her age and her superior – made inappropriate sexual advances while in an Italian restaurant in New York where the BBC team had been filming the Republican Convention in 2004. The colleague said: “I’m unbelievably sexually attracted to you. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Ms Vaidyanathan said she was appalled
‘He said he’d fantasised about sex with powerful women, and how he wanted to cheat on his wife’
but did nothing. “I now know,” she wrote, “it was utterly unacceptable, and is just another reminder of how some men in the workplace use their power to manipulate, harass and even abuse women.”
On a third occasion, another married BBC journalist knocked on her hotel door while they were on assignment, having sent her a “suggestive” text.
“In that case I ran into the bathroom and called a friendly male colleague – who told me to phone him again if I felt threatened,” she said.
The BBC declined to discuss the cases raised by Ms Vaidyanathan.
A spokesman for the corporation said: “We wouldn’t comment on staff matters but we take any allegations of inappropriate behaviour, bullying or harassment very seriously and have clear procedures to deal with them.”