Hadia Tajik defends Giske’s handling in a new book – VG

Hadia Tajik’s book “Freedom: A Political and Personal History”, which is published by Tiden Publishing House, is scheduled to be released on Friday, but various outlets have gained access to the book on Thursday night.

In the book, Tajikistan defends its own course of action related to the warnings against its former deputy colleague Trond Giske, writes Aftenposten. VG has also read the book.

Tajik writes that on December 20, 2017, she was informed by a close employee that she had submitted a formal notification to the leadership of the Labor Party secretariat at the Storting. The warning concerned alleged sexual harassment and was related to Trond Giske.

– A moral duty

Tajik reacts in the book to the fact that several newspapers wrote that she was the one who relayed the first warnings about Giske to the “correct body”, and says that the woman sent the warning before telling Tajik.

“What is correct is that I have ensured that concerns and information about unacceptable behavior reach those who need to follow up. The pleasure is mine.”

Tajik writes that anyone who receives information about something worthy of criticism has both a legal and a moral duty to address it, or to pass it on to those who should.

He says that at the same time he was informed of the warning on December 20, he saw an assessment of the warning by an attorney and an organizational psychologist.

“I had no reason to doubt what he said. I still don’t have that,” Tajik writes.

Trond Giske resigned as vice president and fiscal policy spokesperson in the Labor Party on January 7, 2018 after several warnings of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. The party later concluded that it had violated the party’s guidelines against sexual harassment. Giske has apologized for his own behavior, but denies the allegations of sexual harassment.

Trond Giske does not want to comment on the information in the book related to the warnings against him, writes Aftenposten.

Open about the disease

In the book, Tajik (37) is also open about the fact that she suffers from the female diseases endometriosis and adenomyosis, which has meant that she and her husband Kristian Skard (48) have struggled to have children.

Endometriosis and adenomyosis are generalized gynecological diseases in which the endometrial tissue is found outside the uterus, in the abdominal cavity.

The couple are expecting a child in January. In the book, Tajik says that getting there was not a routine matter: Only after many attempts at IVF, which is often called test tubes, did she become pregnant in April.

– It was the most beautiful cross she had ever seen, she writes about the positive pregnancy test.

The first to know when she decided to tell him she was pregnant was Jonas Gahr Støre.

– But while it was happening, I did not want him to know anything, so as not to be distracted from political work. She didn’t want him to think “wondering if she’s hurting now” as I inform him about the oil tax, Tajik tells VG about it.

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According to the editor, the common thread of the book is freedom in various areas of Norway today, and Tajik writes about, among other things, freedom of expression, religion, choice of school, freedom in working life, centralization vs. decentralization, health and biotechnology law.

She also tells about her own upbringing as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, born into the Norwegian working class with a mother who worked in the store and a father in the oil industry and about her growth in the Biblical belt Bjørheimsbygd in Rogaland.