Alibaba to offer self-defense training in response to sexual assault allegation The Register

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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba published a letter to its 250,000+ employees in which it explains its reaction to recent news of a heartbreaking sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by a business leader and the response from the company includes self-defense training for staff.

Entitled “Alibaba to strengthen organizational safeguards for a positive work environment,” the letter details three main sets of initiatives. One is the creation of a working environment group committee to be led by female senior managers, with the mission of defining workplace policies, establishing an independent body to investigate complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault and to create an appeal committee.

The company is also committed to reforming its codes of conduct and workplace policies. A group code of conduct for the prevention of sexual harassment will be developed and the company code of conduct will be revised “to improve practices and measures related to the prevention of sexual harassment and sexual assault”.

The third set of initiatives is titled “We Institutionalize Positive Workplace Measures” and include the following:

Alibaba published the letter in English. It is not clear if anything was lost in the translation, which the Register mentions, as improving victims’ ability to defend themselves is generally not seen as a tactic that can prevent harassment or the attacks.

The section also announces the creation of a team called “ALI-WE” to “examine and eradicate inappropriate workplace behaviors reported by employees, including, but not limited to, issues such as culture forced drinking and bad taste comments that make the workplace uncomfortable ”.

“Employees will have unconditional support to refuse any kind of forced consumption,” says the section on ALI-WE.

“The best thinking is action,” opens the last paragraph of the letter. “Each of us is responsible for contributing to a positive atmosphere at Alibaba. It is our common responsibility to create a mutually respectful working environment. Please join us in our actions! Let’s work hard together!”

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