The China editor of British public service broadcaster, BBC, has resigned from her post in Beijing due to pay disparities with her male colleagues.
The editor, Carrie Gracie, wrote an open letter on her personal blog on Sunday.
In her letter, Gracie said there was a “crisis of trust” at the broadcaster, where she has worked for 30 years.
She mentioned “breaking equality law and lack of fair and transparent pay structure” as crisis of trust.
The BBC had four international editors, two men and two women, of which she was one, she said.
When the BBC revealed top salaries as part of last year’s settlement, Gracie said she learned that the two men made at least 50 per cent more money than the women in those roles.
She said she had since had been offered a pay increase that remained “far short of equality” and left her post in Beijing last week, returning to her former job in the BBC TV newsroom.
“The BBC must admit the problem, apologise and set in place an equal, fair and transparent pay structure,” she said, calling for an independent arbitration to settle individual cases at the broadcaster.
Meanwhile, a BBC spokeswoman said that “fairness in pay” at the corporation is “vital”, and that an audit of pay for rank and file staff led by an independent judge found there was “no systemic discrimination against women”.
The BBC has come under fire recently for paying male employees more and has pledged to close the gender gap by 2020.
In July, it revealed that it paid its then top male star five times more than its best-paid female presenter, and that two-thirds of on-air employees earning at least 150,000 pounds ($203,500) were men.
