Women cricket players allegedly forced to perform sexual favours for officials to earn or keep places on the team
COLOMBO, Nov 7 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sri Lanka has begun investigating allegations that members of the national women's cricket team were forced to perform sexual favours for officials in order to earn or keep their places on the team, officials said on Friday.
Local media reports in late October quoted an unnamed senior female cricketer, who claimed that team management and officials selecting players had asked women cricketers to have sex with them if they wanted to be on the team.
The allegations, which first appeared in the Sinhala-language newspaper Divaina, said the senior player was dropped from the squad after she refused to perform sexual favours.
Officials from Sri Lanka Cricket, the controlling body for the sport, said they had not received any direct complaints from women players, but they did launch an initial probe into the allegations.
"Due to the media reports, we have appointed an independent person, an attorney-at-law from the private sector, for a fact-finding investigation," Ashley de Silva, chief executive officer of Sri Lanka Cricket, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Harsha Abeykoon, spokesman for the Sports Minister, said based on the results of the initial probe, the ministry planned to hold a more in-depth investigation headed by female judge.
Sri Lanka's women cricket team is ranked fifth in the world in one-day international games after West Indies, Australia, England and South Africa by the International Cricket Council.
(Writing by Shihar Aneez, editing by Nita Bhalla and Alisa Tang.)
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