Women of Telugu cinema urge for sexual harassment report in Tollywood; write to the CM of Telangana

In an unprecedented move, several leading women members of Tollywood, also known as Telugu Film Industry, have come together and written to the Telangana government seeking the release of the sexual harassment report which has been a matter of great expectation.

Samantha, Kajal Aggarwal, Taapsee Pannu, Lakshmi Manchu, Anchor Suma, Jhansi, Nandini Reddy, Rahul Ravindran and many other prominent persons in the film industry went to social media on Saturday demanding change and accountability for such violations. Actors and filmmakers shared the same on their social media accounts to raise their voices against the protests happening in the Malayalam film industry due to sexual harassment of women. In regards to the same, to bring out the same in Telugu cinema as well, many voices have come together.

 The women, then, communicated a quotation from the Voice of Women (VOW), an aspect of TFI, explaining the need to unmask the report to come up with strategies that protect women in workplaces. In addition, the VOW communique commended Justice Hema Committee Report and the Women In Cinema Collective (WCC) in Kerala wherein it is appreciated how such relentless advocacy has been the common ground for a few of these concerns in other sectors.

All about Voice of Women

Born out of the WCC ideology, the Voice of Women was formed in 2019 as a lobby for the women in TFI. The founders of this initiative include well-known personalities such as Lakshmi Manchu, producers Supriya and Swapna, actor Jhansi, director Nandini Reddy and others. The association which started with some five women now boasts 80 women from different technical wings of the Industry.

 The call for the report's release has grown in the wake of the celebrated public outcry by the actress and anchor Sri Reddy in 2018 who had many accounts of sexual abuse in the Telugu film industry. Her protest generated massive public discourse among others getting the govt Of Telangana to set up a committee of high-profile people in 2019 to counter such issues.

Thereafter, it was recommended that a subcommittee be organized to make specific recommendations to the government. Even if the study was not completed due to a pandemic and the resulting lockdown — COVID-19 in 2020 — The subcommittee however later managed to do so and their report 'Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Telugu Film and Television Industries' was released in 2021. Nonetheless, the document has not come into the public domain.