I was on the phone speaking to someone in Nigeria and in the middle of the conversation, they asked about the news regarding Jimmy Savile. Oh dear, it seems the Jimmy Savile fiasco is now global news.

The past few weeks have seen a UK ‘national treasure' go from hero to zero. National treasure is used to refer to someone who is much loved, revered and respected in the UK. Some are actors, athletes, writers or other such personalities. In the case of Jimmy Savile, for many decades, he was closely associated with family entertainment on TV, radio and fundraising for charities. He had a BBC TV program where children wrote him letters about their wishes and he made them come through.

He died last year and was much mourned and much praised by many people. However, a year later his reputation has gone from hero to zero with over one hundred allegations that he sexually molested young women and girls throughout his career in TV, and charity fundraising. Some of the most disturbing allegations are that he molested vulnerable people who were ill in hospitals - while he was active in fundraising for that hospital. Whilst he was alive, he was so respected that he was decorated by the Queen who gave him a knighthood so he was called ‘Sir Jimmy Savile."

While the scale of the abuse allegations is truly shocking, it has now emerged that Saville's reputation was known amongst some BBC staff. Despite that he was promoted as a public figure and given access to young women and girls so it seems that some senior managers tolerated his abhorrent behaviour.

Moreover, others have described a wider problem within the BBC and it seems that such behaviour appears to have been commonplace. Former BBC radio presenter Liz Kershaw described her disturbing experiences of joining Radio One in the 1980s. She described how she was physically molested whilst on air, but that when she complained about it, nothing was done. Other female presenters have described similar realities in other media offices in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, such public opinion that permitted promiscuity, sexual harassment and dishonouring women is not a thing of the past, but exists in modern day Britain and the culture of viewing women as commodities is sadly alive and well. The UK has the phenomenon of ‘lads mags'- men's magazines that focus heavily on the sexual portrayal of women in order to sell magazines. ‘Page 3 girl' is another similar phenomenon and this is big money for some media houses.

Western societies have made the debasement of women a norm and people fail to address the causes of this attitude and behaviour towards women. It is argued that men desire women, and that such magazines and newspapers are there to meet a demand and that it is all a bit of harmless fun. Tackling this problem at the source would require a curtailment of freedoms and there are many powerful vested interests (like media owners) that oppose that. Furthermore, politicians in a capitalist democratic society dare not defy those vested interests. Also, these politicians are less likely to legislate to reduce people's choices and freedoms even though these cause to harm society.

As a consequence, we see them forever searching for ways to reduce the damage after it has been done; endless child protection strategies to safeguard children from predators, instead of curbing the environment that breeds and nurtures such predators. There is very rarely an admission that ‘freedom' has gone too far and is the ultimate cause of harm to women in society - exploiting them for their physical appearance. Without confronting this issue, Britain will forever be dealing with the aftermath of similar scandals.

Taji Mustafa

Media Representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain