“There could be such cases in sports also," said wrestler Vinesh Phogat amidst the #MeToo movement storm across the country. She believes the country must find ways to prevent sexual harassment of its women. The gold medallist in Asian and Commonwealth Games was present at a discussion at the Ekamra Sports Literary Festival on Saturday, The Times Of India reported.
On #MeToo
Phogat, confessed that she has not experienced any kind of sexual harassment in her career. She says, "I don't know, but I have not faced any kind of such harassment in my career. I also feel that my sport of wrestling should not have these kind of issues."
"The women who are coming out are courageous. When you want to bring out these kind of things in the open, many a times your family will stop you from doing, fearing your reputation will be harmed. The country should be able to deal with these kind of issues," she added.
#MeToo In Sports
Earlier, former badminton player Jwala Gutta had shared her story of 'mental harassment' on Twitter. "Maybe I should talk about the mental harassment I had to go through...#metoo," Jwala Gutta tweeted. "Since 2006, since this person became the chief, he threw me out of national team in spite of me being a national champion. The latest was when I returned from Rio. I was out of national team again. One of the reasons I stopped playing!"
"So when this person couldn't get through to me...he threatened my partners, harassed them, made sure to isolate me in every manner. Even after Rio, the one who I was gonna play mixed with was threatened. And I was just thrown out of the team," she tweeted.
Last month, the Rio silver medallist PV Sindhu had come out encouraging the people who are speaking on harassment, saying, "I appreciate that people have come forward and spoken about it. I respect it."
When asked if she was aware of any such incident in her sport, she said, "Well I don't know about seniors and coaches. As far as I am concerned, it's been fine and good for me."
"Now there have been a lot of changes in the country. We women should be brave enough, we can achieve our dreams and shouldn't be scared of anything," Sindhu added.
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