Tag: harassment

  • Private school in Lahore comes under fire for covering up harassment

    Private school in Lahore comes under fire for covering up harassment

    The management of Lahore Grammar School (LGS) 1A1 Ghalib Market Branch, including female teachers, has come under fire for covering up harassment and inappropriate behaviour by instructors for years. It is pertinent to mention here that most of the girls studying at the school were minors at the time.

    Such incidents had reportedly been going on for the past four or five years and the victims had been reporting the matter to the admin and their teachers. However, their teachers had been covering up for their colleagues and brushing the matter under the carpet. They resorted to victim-blaming and refused to take any action. Strict and immediate action was only taken after the girls shared their ordeal on social media.

    According to details, students have come forward and shared their experiences of being harassed by three teachers namely Aitezaz Rehman Sheikh, Umer Shareef and Zahid Iqbal Warraich. To make things easier to understand, here’s a breakdown of the details:

    Aitezaz Rehman Sheikh

    Aitezaz Rehman Sheikh, who used to teach politics and served as a MUN coach had been sending obscene pictures and messages to his students. The students accused him of being manipulative and said that he would coerce girls on international trips.

    Aitezaz Rehman Sheikh

    Zahid Iqbal Warraich

    Similarly, Sir Zahid Warraich, who taught Chemistry to A’ and O’ Levels used to inappropriately touch his students and make them uncomfortable during class.

    Umer Shareef

    Sir Umer was reportedly a member of the admin who would make girls uncomfortable with his stares and glances.

    For more stories, click here.

    Following the outrage on social media, the management of LGS 1A1 immediately fired the instructors and barred them from working at any branch of LGS.

    A few students have also accused Omair Rana’s wife Maira Omair Rana for not taking action and “slut-shaming” the girls who came forward to report. One of the students has also accused the actor of exhibiting inappropriate behaviour.

    https://twitter.com/kaalakawaa/status/1277180064841396225?s=20

    LGS is one of the mose prestigious school for girls in Lahore, with several branches across the city. The management of each branch is separate.

  • Former eBay director arrested for shipping live cockroaches, fly larvae, spiders to a journalist

    Former eBay director arrested for shipping live cockroaches, fly larvae, spiders to a journalist

    Six former eBay employees have been charged for an “aggressive cyber-stalking campaign” targeting a couple that published the newsletter for their negative eBay coverage — sending the couple online threats, abuses, mailing live insects and bloody pig face masks, and driving to their Massachusetts home to surveil them.

    The Department of Justice alleges that James Baugh, David Harville, Stephanie Popp, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea were involved in the harassment campaign.

    The accused created an anonymous account to send insults and threats to the editor of the newsletter and her husband. Later on, the harassment escalated into in-person harassment.

    They shipped pig masks, a box of cockroaches, another box of fly larvae and live spiders, pornography, a book on “surviving the loss of a spouse”, a sympathy wreath from a local florist and a “preserved fetal pig” — although the pig fetus was never delivered.

    The team also allegedly spied on the couple to find evidence that they were collaborating with troll commentators. At one point, they planned to break into their garage and install a tracking device in their car.

    Texts between an unnamed eBay executive and Baugh.

    eBay’s leadership supposedly didn’t know about the harassment campaign until being notified by law enforcement in August 2019. 

    The company posted a statement saying that they have terminated all the employees involved in the case and “eBay does not tolerate this kind of behavior”.

    “eBay apologises to the affected individuals and is sorry that they were subjected to this. eBay holds its employees to high standards of conduct and ethics and will continue to take appropriate action to ensure these standards are followed.”

    Baugh was eBays global security and resiliency director, Harville was director of global resiliency, Popp was senior manager of global intelligence and Gilbert was a former police captain who handled security and safety at eBay’s North American offices.

  • Repeatedly offering tea or food also harrasment: Kashmala Tariq

    Repeatedly offering tea or food also harrasment: Kashmala Tariq

    Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplaces Kashmala Tariq has said that insisting someone for tea or food is tantamount to harassment.

    According to reports, Tariq, while speaking to students and faculty members of Baqai Medical University Karachi about workplace harassment on Monday, said that repeatedly sending greetings to someone if they hadn’t responded the first time, was also harassment.

    “When someone is harassed, especially women, their parents start fearing what the society would think. We must put an end to this mindset of fear,” she was quoted as saying.

    Tariq explained that Federal Ombudsman Secretariat for Protection Against Harassment (FOSPAH) also protected men’s rights and shared how only five cases a month was the frequency back when she took charge. “Now around 60 cases get reported every month,” she added while sharing how her department had contributed to restoring people’s confidence.

    To a question, she said while 80-90% of harassment cases were reported by women, men were also harassed, but mostly by other men.

    Tariq had last year also said that harassment is not limited to sexual assault only and could be of any kind. “If anyone is insisting for tea, it also comes in the form of harassment.”

    She had explained later:

    “I said unwelcoming n unwanted text messages n stalking on social media is also harassment. And then I gave examples. Media shall not take just one line out of context pls [sic].”