An Alibaba employee who accused a manager of raping her during a business trip has been fired by the company—and she says she won't encourage other victims of workplace assault or harassment in China to come forward. The New York Times reports that the woman, identified only as Zhou, was told by the company last month that she had caused "incalculable" damage by "falsehoods such as 'raped by executives and the company knew but did not deal with it." After Zhou went public with the accusation, the manager was fired but authorities decided his "forcible indecency" was not a crime. A case against a client the woman accused of groping her during the same business trip is believed to be ongoing.
In an interview with the Dahe Daily newspaper, Zhou said, "I have not made any mistakes, and certainly will not accept this result, and in the future will use legal means to protect my rights and interests," per the BBC. She said she had been harassed online and threatened with legal acton. Zhou, who said bosses ordered her to drink alcohol at a business dinner on the trip said she had heard from many other women who had had similar experiences but were afraid to come forward, the AP reports. "I will not appeal to other victims of sexual assault to come forth and share their stories, as doing so could cause them to suffer even more hurt," she said.
Analysts say the Chinese government has made it difficult for China's #MeToo movement to get off the ground. Dusica Ristivojevic, senior researcher in interdisciplinary Chinese studies at the University of Helsinki, tells France24 that China's patriarchal society and heavy censorship of the Internet are big obstacles for women who accuse powerful men of sexual misconduct. " Internet censorship is directly aimed at disabling collective organisation online and offline, which poses obstacles to activists," he says. "At the same time, activists and survivors are incredibly intelligent in finding ways to bypass the censorship."
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