Hooray for the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Kate Jenkins, calling out companies that use non-disclosure agreements to stop women complaining about sexual harassment.
This week a former AMP employee revealed she was threatened with the sack if she refused to sign an NDA that would stop her complaint about sexual harassment. The Commissioner says it’s not just a problem with the AMP – banking and finance companies in particular know their reputations are at risk if more women speak up about abuse in the workplace.
I notice organisations were more motivated to keep complaints out of the newspapers than they were to stopping sexual harassment. But I feel the tide is turning on that.
Commissioner Jenkins, The Age, 28 Aug 2020
The AMP has form on covering up abuse and protecting its executives.
We want to see tighter regulations around NDAs to stop them being used to protect corporate and harasser reputations, and an end to this culture of silence.
Australia was once a global leader in tackling sexual harassment but not any more.
According to the AHRC report Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report (2020): Australia now lags behind other countries in preventing and responding to sexual harassment.
Since 2003, the Australian Human Rights Commission has conducted four periodic surveys on the national experience of sexual harassment. Our most recent survey conducted in 2018 showed that sexual harassment in Australian workplaces is widespread and pervasive. One in three people experienced sexual harassment at work in the past five years.[2]
Underpinning this aggregate figure is an equally shocking reflection of the gendered and intersectional nature of workplace sexual harassment. As the 2018 National Survey revealed, almost two in five women (39%) and just over one in four men (26%) have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the past five years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more likely to have experienced workplace sexual harassment than people who are non-Indigenous (53% and 32% respectively).[3]
Sexual harassment is not a women’s issue: it is a societal issue, which every Australian, and every Australian workplace, can contribute to addressing.
Australia now lags behind other countries in preventing and responding to sexual harassment.
Since 2003, the Australian Human Rights Commission has conducted four periodic surveys on the national experience of sexual harassment. Our most recent survey conducted in 2018 showed that sexual harassment in Australian workplaces is widespread and pervasive. One in three people experienced sexual harassment at work in the past five years.[2]
Underpinning this aggregate figure is an equally shocking reflection of the gendered and intersectional nature of workplace sexual harassment. As the 2018 National Survey revealed, almost two in five women (39%) and just over one in four men (26%) have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the past five years. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were more likely to have experienced workplace sexual harassment than people who are non-Indigenous (53% and 32% respectively).[3]
Sexual harassment is not a women’s issue: it is a societal issue, which every Australian, and every Australian workplace, can contribute to addressing.
Photo by René Ranisch on Unsplash