Date: Saturday 25 July
Time: 11:00am – 11:50am
Location: Fringe Room 3
Format: Panel discussion
Organisation: Working Women’s Centre Australia
Bad-faith employers and perpetrators often use legal instruments and tactics to silence women who have faced sexual harassment and/or discrimination at work. They are designed to stop public participation and prevent women from speaking up.
Some of these silencing tactics include:
- The use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), usually seen as ‘confidentiality’ or ‘non-disparagement’ clauses in a settlement; and
- Defamation, including threats of or commencement of defamation proceedings by alleged perpetrators to silence women who have been subjected to sexual harassment or sexual violence.
When we silence women in the workplace, we stop progress. How can we improve workplaces if we’re not talking about the issues? Women need to be able to tell their stories, to speak up, to warn others, and to demand change.
This panel discussion brings together lived experience activists, lawyers and advocates to examine the legal, cultural and institutional conditions required to make speaking up genuinely safe, supported and effective in workplaces. Drawing on existing and emerging policy reform and survivor advocacy, the session asks what is required to shift responsibility away from individuals and toward perpetrators, organisational accountability, and prevention by employers.
