Harassment claims against SL women’s team officials confirmed

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan authorities have identified three male officials guilty of sexual harassment of members of the country’s women’s cricket team but have no intentions to begin criminal proceedings against them.
The island nation’s sports ministry last week revealed an investigation had found that members of the national women’s team had been forced to perform sexual favours for officials in order to earn or keep their places in the squad.
The incidents had occurred in 2013 and 2014 and had prompted Sri Lanka’s sports ministry to carry out an inquiry of their own. A committee led by NE Dissanayake, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, public trustee Tharangani Dissanaike, and S Aloka Bandara from the Ministry of Public Administration was appointed in November last year to look into the matter.
Their report also noted the “unsatisfactory situation that prevailed in the selection and other aspects relating to women’s cricket.
SLC said it has received the report which mentions cases of sexual harassments in 2013 and 2014 and much of it was corroborated in another report the board had separately commissioned.
“...both reports have concluded that, there have been a few incidents of sexual harassment which were committed by two male officials but that there was no evidence of any physical intimacy and that, there were no grounds to justify criminal proceedings,” the SLC said in a statement.
Both the reports also identified a third male official for “improper conduct” which did not amount to sexual harassment, the statement read.
“Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to state that, all three officials who were identified in the reports no longer function in their previous positions since their contracts were not renewed when they ended in April this year,” it added.