Alibaba sacks 10 workers for leaking sexual assault claims

ALIBABA, the Chinese tech giant, has fired 10 members of staff for leaking a fellow employee’s account of sexual assault, which she claims to have suffered at the hands of a former manager, according to reports.

The colleague posted an account of the alleged assault on an internal employee forum.

The group of 10 then shared the post externally, which violated Alibaba’s strict policies against making public content posted on employee forums, Bloomberg reported.

Alibaba decided to fire the 10 workers after ending an internal investigation, insiders said. It is yet to announce the findings of that inquiry.

The sexual abuse allegations surfaced earlier this month and have shaken China’s second-biggest company.

Alibaba dismissed the accused manager and accepted the resignations of two senior executives.

These sorts of abuses are, however, generally regarded as widespread in Chinese companies.

The case sparked debate about sexism in corporate circles, shining a spotlight on criticisms that Chinese women in business are often overlooked, objectified and brushed aside when they report abuse.

The employee posted her account of the sexual abuse internally after claiming to have made no progress after complaining to her supervi- sors and human resources.

She then protested at one of Alibaba’s staff cafeterias, which was captured on video and viewed millions of times.

Alibaba launched an internal inquiry after this event and reprimanded its HR chief.

It has also set up a hotline for sexual harassment complaints and created a com- mittee to resolve future

‘The case sparked debate about sexism in Chinese corporate circles’

disputes.

Alibaba’s chief executive, Daniel Zhang, said the handling of the complaint was a “humiliation”.

The employee described in her post of being forced to drink excessively and getting harassed during and after a dinner with clients.

Alibaba’s internal platform is open to its 250,000 employees, but has strict user policies in place regarding sharing information found on the forum outside of the company.

Chinese police made their first arrest in the case last week.

The employee’s former manager remains under investigation by the police on suspicion of “forcible indecency”, a charge that can include sexual assault.