“New girls exploited…” Kannada actors raise voice after harassment row jolts Kerala film industry

he also asked is there sexual harassment in the film industry we all said yes I want a committee to be formed to protect women and to protect their rights and so that the women know about their rights they don't even know about their rights we asked Mr Sida following the footsteps of Rya not just in tokenism not just in paper headlines but in action and policy see I am 18e experienced I can ask you so many questions but will a new girl know all these questions and if a new girl is asked then her questions will be suppressed so we want a new body to be formed and um this is an initiative from my Foundation sanjana gani Foundation I have been a part of the film industry worked in all four South Indian film Industries Hindi television for a span of more than 18 years and uh I have come across many situations where I have seen uh many people who are not even official producers official directors who just utilize the name of the film industry that yes I am from the film industry and I will give you an opportunity and try to exploit so many new girls who come into the film industry so when it comes to the so this is a very wide topic but I want to come down to the Canada film industry because I am from Karnataka and I have started my career here I'm really very emotional about being a part of Canada film industry so I want a committee to be formed to protect women and to protect their rights and so that the women know about their rights they don't even know about their rights how they are supposed to behave what are the facilities they supp supposed to ask so there's no Board of director of women which is readily available to help or supervise the need of the women in the Canada film indust committee called HMA Justice HMA committee was formed in Kerala it submitted its report other side there are several committees several organizations here also submitting the report to for the Safety and Security of the women ensuring the Safety and Security of the women are you also assuring them no we are not assuring uh uh see there the damage had happened in Kerala and after that the committee was formed here I am asking for a particular committee which will be controlling the damage from happening we don't want the damage to happen of course there is women exploitation happening everywhere there are uh you know fake scamster people who promis you make promises and roam around saying I am from the film industry but when it comes to women who will educate them that you know what are the questions you need to ask him are you really a producer what is it that you have produced in the past are you there on IMDb uh have you are you a director have is your film already released is your film available on YouTube is it there on Netflix is it there on Amazon can I have a glance of it can I see a YouTube link of it is your name there in the particular subtitles see I am 18e experienced I can ask you so many questions but will a new girl know all these questions and if a new girl is asked then her questions will be suppressed you want opportunity or you don't want opportunity and then she'll fall into the Trap so if there's a committee which is formed to educate women about their basic rights protecting them protecting them and to educate them about their basic rights and to make them a member of Sandalwood women artist Association we are calling it s so if they are registered with u artist Association we can give them a rule book to empower them about their rights you know and but I have come here particularly to vidan SAA to meet the CM and the home minister because uh through meeting them we want this particular swaa to be Affiliated by the government of Karnataka so that it has has more weightage yesterday from our Fire Organization film industry for rights and equality an organization started in 2017 for the benefit of three WS women writers and workers in the film industry we have fought we were the first organization to start up an internal complaints Committee in any film industry in the nation to address sexual harassment we started in 2017 in 2018 we stood with the survivors of uh me to and we gave them moral support legal support emotional support and very things we have we have been working for seven years today similar organizations such as the WCC which is which is uh led by a lot of gender equality women we they pushed the Kerala government to pass uh a sanction a h committee report that has come out in 2024 to talk about the pervasiveness of inequality discrimination against women in the film industry and sexual harassment which is gone a muck in our film industry with 30 page Report with 62 pages on sexual harassment we in Karnataka yesterday from fire after getting 153 names of people in the film industry and outside all people who are believing in gender rights and gender equality and gender justice so women and men and transgender we have all put it up that we want a HMA committee report of Our Own in Karnataka from a retired judge who has commiss showed commitment to a gender rights and gender justice and we want that at the earliest we want that in 3 to four months we want you to get that out and we we believe Sida government and will put that through and there's a lot of people support after we got out the open letter yesterday so we ask that Mr siday who talks about Ramya and that he calls himself a Sadi person Ramya we have studied him from biad he has fought for gender rights and women's equality gender equality a lot he has been an active champion of farmers rights and various rights and we asked Mr siday following the footsteps of Rya not just in tokenism not just in paper headlines but in action and policy and that he also today we met him and we gave we submitted the uh our fire petition with 153 names and We Came as a small delegation and Mr siday said I will give you more time in the future I don't have time today I'm only going to give you one minute and he also said that we uh he also asked is there sexual harassment in the film industry we all said yes we said yes we could give you evidence we have our ICC complaints we have many women who have struggle in the film industry and various things and there's a built-in inequality a systemic inequality I hope that question is to learn and to study and to understand and to make it go away but I hope that question is not a convenient way to evade and to and to show false not false unawareness so we hope that we will give you evidence please follow through please pass a kind of committee report like the way uh Kerala government has shown it's not that Kerala government is a better government than a Karnataka government we show that anybody who fights for rights of human beings and women in deprived sections will stand for that and Karnataka government and sidama administration will also sanction such a report for our Canada film industry and women uh sexual harassment women inequality anywhere in the state