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Radio bosses suspended as more women start to speak out

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Mishka Gounden
Mishka Gounden

The culture of toxic masculinity that has infected Lotus FM over the past two decades is finally being exposed and dealt with

At noon on Friday, the station manager at Lotus FM left his office at the SABC’s Durban headquarters and said he was going to watch the cricket at nearby Kingsmead Stadium, say two sources.

He was not carrying his laptop bag as usual.

City Press has it on good authority that Alvin Pillay was one of almost a dozen men suspended last week and asked to hand in their SABC property, including security access cards.

This, following letters served earlier in the week inviting the men to respond to why they should not be suspended.

The embattled radio station was at the centre of investigations by the commission of inquiry into sexual harassment at the SABC.

But more women have come forward at Lotus last week, even as the public broadcaster prepares for disciplinary hearings that will allow the men to once again respond to the allegations made against them.

These range from sex-for-jobs claims to a manager wanting a woman staffer to touch his erect penis and a historic case of violent assault.

Alvin Pillay

Many of the Lotus FM complainants lost their jobs or resigned shortly afterwards, and the SABC has publicly acknowledged that management failed the women.

It is unclear exactly why Pillay has been suspended, but a City Press investigation into Lotus FM heard allegations from three witnesses that he “hit on” and repeatedly touched a female broadcaster inappropriately at a Cape Town hotel on a work trip.

The harassment continued at the airport and on the plane home, as well as at King Shaka International Airport in Durban.

According to emails and sources, the woman’s complaint was dismissed, after a meeting, by the station’s human resources manager.

Pillay did not respond to the allegations.

Another rising Lotus star, Mishka Gounden, told City Press how, under Pillay’s watch, the SABC terminated her contract for bringing the station into disrepute after sexy videos of her were unlawfully shared, she says, by a former Lotus host, Fahim Jamadar.

When the videos went viral, she attempted suicide.

Jamadar has strongly denied the claims, which will soon be before the courts.

But while the SABC prepares for disciplinary hearings against the men, which spokesperson Neo Momodu says will be overseen by external chairpersons, new incidents came to light last week.

On Friday, the SABC’s human resources boss, Jonathan Thekiso, confirmed that the new cases were “being taken seriously and will be dealt with swiftly”.

A woman broadcaster shared her sexual harassment complaint with City Press.

The incident, she says, took place in December last year at a Lotus team-building party, where a male staff member, since promoted, “was getting more touchy-feely with me than I was comfortable with” in front of colleagues, and later “proceeded to rub his hands down my back in a way that was terribly inappropriate”.

She says he eventually insisted on walking her to her car despite her objections and, when alone, “he picked me up and held me against him. At that point I was visibly distressed, at which [he] said he’d put me down in just a moment – and then proceeded to tell me that he’d have married me had he met me before he had met … his wife.”

Sanobar Khan

Sanobar Khan, another on-air talent at Lotus, on Breakfast Xpress, told City Press she resigned on Thursday because of the “unprofessional way matters are handled” when she emailed a complaint of victimisation and bullying to her bosses.

City Press understands her complaint involves a male host, O’Neil Nair, who, during a conversation about a minor oversight in her traffic report, raised his voice at her and pointed a finger at her threateningly, making her feel unsafe alone with him in the studio.

But Lotus management did not respond to her complaint until she escalated it to senior SABC management.

At a mediation meeting last Friday, her claims, say sources, were roundly dismissed and she was chastised for using phrases like “gender inequality” and “bullying” to describe the environment facing women at Lotus.

She says she ended up taking leave because of the stress.

This is not the first time a female star has abruptly quit working with Nair.

“As an advocate for mental health and gender equality in the workplace, the toxic culture is simply no longer conducive, which is why I have chosen to leave,” said Khan in a statement.

“I want this decision and my voice to assist other women by speaking out against these unacceptable issues in the work environment.”

The SABC did not respond to specific questions about the incident.

Vanessa Govender

Meanwhile, a former Lotus star presenter, journalist Vanessa Govender, told City Press that she was tired of Lotus FM using a legal expert on air even after she told SABC management that the man had been insulting her on Facebook after she recently released her book, Beaten but not Broken, about an abusive relationship with a Lotus radio jock almost 20 years ago.

On his public Facebook page, lawyer Saber Ahmed Jazbhay, a self-proclaimed “activist against domestic violence”, has likened Govender’s book to “a sort of cleansing … like a rape victim inevitably does … after her ordeal”.

He goes on to chastise her for not naming her perpetrator and thereby “contributing to criminal behaviour” through a culture of silence.

Jazbhay then compares the book to “housewife gossip and an attempt to cleanse herself from a sordid past”, and questions its truth.

In later posts in response to a Facebook user who praises Govender’s book, he questions whether it is a “fabrication” and speculates whether Govender was not a willing participant in her abuse, saying she has “no guts”.

In an unrelated post, Jazbhay posted a meme with a revealing photo of a woman in a tight white skirt with the words: “The length of an essay should be like a woman’s skirt. Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep it interesting.”

He is just one of several men criticising Govender on social media. Another asks her: “Don’t you think you should take some blame?” for being punched by her abuser.

Asked for comment on the backlash, Govender told City Press: “On the whole, I have had nothing but love and support from most people. [But] in attempting to diminish and demean me and my experience with brutal gender violence and even forced intimate partner assault, these social media trolls reveal themselves as dangerous, misogynistic bullies.

“I find it bizarre that there are people who exist who believe there are two sides to a story of gender violence. Do they also hold that same attitude and belief when it comes to the rape of babies?

"It is dangerous as it is diabolical to consider, when so many are dying as a result of gender violence, that victims and survivors are the ones who are assaulted with vicious verbal attacks and questioned for speaking out, while perpetrators are simply ignored.”

In response to questions about whether he was further victimising Govender and shaming her about her abuse, Jazbhay responded: “I will reserve my rights in law if any defamatory allegations are published.

"My comments fall within freedom of expression … Let me make this clear: I am totally against any gender-based violence and abuse, and therefore it is shocking that such terrible comments are being levelled against me.”

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