CWI: Zero tolerance on abuse, whistle-blower policy coming

CRICKET West Indies (CWI) president Kishore Shallow has assured the organisation will not tolerate abuse of any kind. Shallow, who was elected unopposed to serve a three-year term as CWI president on March 29, made the comment at CWI's quarterly press conference in Antigua on March 31.

Responding to a question on CWI's handling of recent allegations of sexual harassment within the West Indies women's camp at the 2020 International Cricket Council Twenty/20 World Cup, Shallow said, "We have a zero-tolerance policy on any form of abuse in the organisation. And this isn't only for players, but the staff and everyone involved.

"I remember years ago (2020 or 2019) when this matter was topical internally. CWI president at the time, Ricky Skerritt, spoke with our human resource team and ensured this is planted in all contracts of everyone we engage at CWI. There's zero tolerance for any form of abuse in our organisation."

The allegations in question surfaced when a March 21 Starcom Network report indicated that a "former West Indies women's cricketer is alleging that she endured prolonged sexual harassment in the regional team."

The cricketer's claims were reportedly supported by former West Indies women's manager Evril Betty Lewis.

At the conference, new CWI CEO Chris Dehring said an official report of the alleged incident was never given to the board. Similar to Shallow, Dehring said there was no room for behaviour of that nature in the regional team's setup.

"We don't have any official report of any specific action or allegation. We were simply responding to the allegations as it occurred in the media, which was just recently," said Dehring, referring to CWI and the West Indies Players' Association's (WIPA) March 21 media release which addressed the allegations and outlined the efforts of the aforementioned organisations to improve safeguarding measures for male and female cricketers.

"The event that took place five years ago and there wasn't a specific report. And, obviously, even the current media (reporting) is still very speculative in that nobody has been named and so on. What was gratifying is the fact when the issue arose, there had been tremendous amount of work done by the organisation over a number of years implementing policies and plans," Dehring said.

"We're very clear in terms of the fact that this is something we or any other corporation in the Caribbean, if those things are occurring, we want to stamp it out like they do. We want to also prevent the opportunity for them to take place."

Dehring said a whistle-blower policy is also in the works to ensure players feel safe when dealing with matters of this nature.

"There needs to be a process that allows people to feel confident to come to the board or an independent organisation to be able to report such matters," Dehring said.

"We have a very competent and experienced HR committee that has been working on (the whistle-blower policy) and it will be populated with WIPA who we have engaged to try and deal with any type of athlete safeguarding issue.

"Hopefully, we will have that whistle-blower policy and process in place very soon so people can feel confident to come to the board...We take it seriously and we're going to do our part as part of Caribbean society to stamp out any possibility of our athletes not feeling safe."