In 2022, Ms. Aleyama Vijayan, who has advocated for women's empowerment for more than three decades and is the founder trustee of the feminist organisation Sakhi Women’s Resource Centre, and her husband AJ Vijayan, who has been working as a trade unionist and researcher in the fisheries sector since 1980, were subjected to slander.

Sakhi was accused of receiving foreign contributions for protests against the Vizhinjam International Seaport project. Members of coastal fishing communities in Kerala, India have raised numerous concerns about human rights and environmental harms related to the Vizhinjam International Seaport project, a collaborative effort between the Government of Kerala which owns the port through the Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL), and Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited. These allegations include violations of the right to free, prior, and informed consent, displacement of community members, coastal erosion, biodiversity depletion, negative impacts on the livelihoods of the affected fishing communities, and attacks on human rights defenders, along with other social and environmental harms.

It is believed that this smear campaign was an attempt to discredit Ms. Aleyama Vijayan and AJ Vijayan and portray community opposition to the port project as a foreign conspiracy through funding.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited (VISL) and Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited to respond to allegations about the project. VISL responded; Adani Vizhinjam Port Private Limited did not.