We’ve Long Endured a Culture of Silence: Dia Mirza on #MeToo

The actor hopes more women will be encouraged to speak up.

Dia Mirza has spoken out about Bollywood’s #MeToo movement.

(Photo courtesy: Twitter)

Actor Dia Mirza says women have long endured a culture of silence, and because of that, sexual predators have got encouragement.

Dia was interacting with the media at a panel discussion on the documentary Harvey Weinstein - The Inside Story, along with Swara Bhasker and documentarian Anant Patwardhan in Mumbai on Thursday.

The actor told IANS, “I feel every woman should watch this film to understand how society functions, especially people in positions of power. More than anything else, it will encourage more women to come forward with their stories because we have long endured a culture of silence.”

“I think because of silence of women, sexual predators have got encouragement, so I feel when women will talk openly about these issues then only, we will be able to see the change,” she added.

When asked what is her take on increasing cases of sexual harassment at the work place in India, she said, “If you see this documentary, then you will realise two things which will contradict our understanding regarding this #MeToo movement. First thing is that whichever narratives have come forward by women, those have been based on serious investigations and official complaints that have been made with the police and investigating agencies.”

Dia said that to make the #MeToo movement successful, it is important that victims should file an official compliant. “I think for the movement to be successful, for it to continue a healthy dialogue, for it to make enterprises more responsible and make the workplace for women safer and encourage more women to come forward, I think it is essential for women to also consider the importance of filing official complaints,” she said.

Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani is the latest name to be called out for sexual harassment with a female assistant alleging in an article in HuffPost India that he sexually abused her more than once between March and September 2018 while working on Sanju.

Reacting to this Dia told IANS, “He has been a very close friend of mine and I have worked with him for so many years, so to comment on his case will be unfair on my part because I don’t know the details. I just want to say that before making an allegation, it’s very important to file a complaint with the ICC (Internal Complaints Committee) and they should carry out a due investigation on entire matter because without that, it’s impossible to really understand the full extent of what has happened and it can be deeply damaging to everyone.”