No women excluded: BAPS in Eiffel tour row
The BAPS (Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha) has said an investigation into a controversial visit by its delegation to the Eiffel Tower in Paris found that the organisation did not ask for female employees to be hidden, removed or excluded from the visitor route.
The clarification comes after Eiffel Tower employees went on strike last month following allegations that female staff members were moved away during a September 5 visit by around 100 people associated with BAPS. The protest resulted in the temporary closure of the iconic Paris landmark.
In a statement issued on Thursday, BAPS Paris reiterated that it had never requested that women working at the Eiffel Tower be excluded from the delegation’s route.
“The investigation establishes this fact that BAPS made no such request for women to be excluded along the visitor route,” the organisation said.
BAPS also expressed concern for the employees affected by the controversy and said it hoped the findings would help clarify the circumstances surrounding the visit and allow those involved to move forward.
The statement followed an announcement by the Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, the company operating the monument, that its chief executive Patrick Branco Ruivo would step down at the end of the year.
The decision came after an independent investigation identified several operational failures linked to the BAPS delegation’s visit. Eiffel Tower employees represented by the CGT trade union had alleged that workplace instructions resulted in female staff being sidelined, replaced or made invisible because of their gender.
The BAPS Hindu temple in Paris had earlier apologised to anyone who may have been hurt or inconvenienced by the episode, while maintaining that, to its knowledge, access to the Eiffel Tower had not been denied to anyone.
The BAPS delegation had travelled to France in connection with the inauguration of the BAPS Hindu temple near Paris, which was consecrated in September.
According to its website, BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha describes itself as a socio-spiritual Hindu organisation with more than 1,300 temples across North America, Europe, Africa, West Asia, India and the Asia-Pacific region.
