Chinese fined K2.8m for sexual harassment

The Mzuzu Senior Resident Magistrate’s Court has ordered China national Chen Shiliang, 51, to pay K2.8 million as compensation or serve two years in jail for sexually harassing two female workers at his workplace.

Delivering the sentence, Mzuzu senior resident magistrate Godfrey Nyirenda said the amount includes K800 000 as court fine and K1 million to each of the two women as compensation.

“In total, he [Shiliang] has to pay K2.8 million,” the magistrate said.

Shiliang, who works as a chef at China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, a construction company that is constructing the Nkhata Bay Town Water Supply and Sanitation Project under the Northern Region Water Board, faced two charges of sexual harassment contrary to Section 6 of the Gender Equality Act.

In a case that lasted for 45 minutes, police prosecutor Moja Phiri told the court that between May and June this year, Shiliang allegedly sexually harassed two women working as cooks at the same company.

“Shiliang touched the women’s buttocks and breasts and also private parts of one of the ladies from May through to June,” he said.

Phiri said that despite the two women reporting the matter to the company’s authorities, the convict continued harassing them, a development that prompted the women to report the matter to Youth Net and Counselling (Yoneco) in the district.

In his submission to the court, lawyer representing Shiliang, Constantin Mandala, asked the court to be lenient with his client as a first offender and that he pleaded guilty to both charges; hence, saving the court’s time.

Shiliang’s conviction comes barely a week after a court in Dedza fined another Chinese also working at a construction company K1 million for physically assaulting a Malawian employee working as a dumper operator.