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Reflections on the review into women in the Australian Defence Force

Sex Discrimination

Reflections on the review into women in the Australian Defence Force

Speech
by Elizabeth Broderick

Sex Discrimination
Commissioner

Australian Human Rights
Commission

NSW Rape Crisis Centre Annual General Meeting

Café Birkenhead, Drummoyne

9 October 2012


I am delighted to be here this evening at the Rape Crisis Centre’s AGM.
I am constantly inspired by the dedication, compassion and commitment of the
workers – paid and volunteers – who work at Rape Crisis. You are a
strong voice in our community - I am filled with admiration for the work that
you do. In particular, thank you, Karen, for all your incredible work and
leadership of such a wonderful organisation and for giving me the opportunity to
be with you all here tonight, to talk about some of my recent work.

I acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional land of the Wangal
people of the Eora nation and to pay my respects to their elders past and
present.

I would like to acknowledge those attending this evening including members of
the NSW Rape Crisis Centre Board, Association Members, counsellors and workers
of NSW Rape Crisis Centre, colleagues and guests.

As you may know, over the past year I have been leading a Review into the
Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Academy (or ADFA) and the broader
Defence Force. The report into ADFA was released in November last year. And,
about a month ago, the Report into the broader ADF was released.

Our Review was sparked by events relating to the unlawful sexualised
treatment of ADF women, but the Review had a much broader imperative. We
examined the underlying culture and structures that might be contributing to
this form of marginalisation, while looking at the failure of the ADF to keep
pace with workforces across Australia.

Tonight I want to give you an overview of certain aspects of the review, and
focus on three areas:

  • First, I want to talk a bit about the process my team and I undertook in
    conducting this review, and some of my experiences with the ADF
  • Second, I want to tell you of a few personal stories that serving women and
    men shared with me along the way, in order to illustrate some of the challenges
    and issues women in the ADF face
  • Finally, I want to touch on some of the Review’s findings and
    recommendations, and cast my eye towards the future.

The ADF is an
organisation with a long and proud history, rooted in a military culture which
is “largely rules-based, conservative and
traditional.”[1] It is the sort
of institution that you might imagine would be wary of external review, and we
were sensitive to this right from the beginning.

However, our experience was generally one of constructive engagement. The
Senior Leadership team granted us unprecedented access both to facilities and to
personnel. The Review team visited 36 facilities across Australia, including
Navy, Army and Air Force bases, training colleges and recruit schools. We
observed exercises and demonstrations. We spent time under water in submarines
and above on ships. We flew in black hawk helicopters and C130 aircraft, we
drove in tanks and armoured vehicles.

We visited six bases in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan –
visiting troops in Kabul, Tarin Kowt and Kandahar. Forward Operating Bases.

Overall, we spoke directly with almost 2,000 ADF personnel. We also surveyed
over 6,000 personnel; and conducted focus groups and one on one discussion,
interviewing both male and female members. In short, our access was extensive,
and the wide range of views that we heard shaped our thinking and our
recommendations about reform.

The senior leaders we spoke to were, on the whole, people of integrity who
recognise the link between an increase in the engagement of women and the future
sustainability of the Force. They saw that improvements in the representation
and treatment of women in the ADF would benefit individual members, and the
organisation as a whole.

Our reception from members on the ground was diverse. Generally, members were
very engaged in focus groups and consultative sessions. A minority were openly
hostile – particularly around the issue of women in armed combat. We
encountered claims that we did not understand the uniqueness of the ADF, we were
part of a knee-jerk reaction to isolated incidents, or that we were fulfilling a
so-called political correctness agenda.

As I travelled from base to base though it became clear to me that the Review
process itself was having an impact on ADF members. Individuals began to seek us
out– to speak to us confidentially - to tell us of their experiences.
Many members recounted positive stories – stories in which the ADF had
served them well. I was consistently struck by a ferocious commitment to
service, and the incredible determination of people to perform for their nation.

But I also heard some highly distressing stories – stories of extreme
exclusion, of harassment and bullying, sexual assault, abuse and victimisation
– of members feeling at greater risk from particular colleagues, or from
organisational failure than from the enemy outside.

By its nature, the ADF is a workplace involving inherent risks. Experiencing
sexual misconduct, harassment, bullying, victimisation and sexual abuse,
however, should never be one of them.

On a number of occasions, information was uncovered that – with the
consent of the person who had disclosed – we felt duty bound to act upon.
The distressing stories I heard were not isolated to one service. Army, Navy and
Air Force all had members who had experienced abuse or harassment.

Let me share with you some of what I was told. One woman said:

I work in a male dominated workforce and ever since I joined, I’ve had
issues ... I’ve had a bunch of stalkers, text messaging, emails,
everything. They’ve got [my details] off the recall list...I reported one
of the guys and they actually didn’t do anything [and] this guy is still
in the Squadron .... I still have to work with him every day and no-one will do
anything about it.

Another told us that she was:

constantly subjected to harassment, bullying and intimidation. People would
talk behind my back... I never let the SNCOs or the other officers see
how upset I was. I was in tears most nights. I am normally
a confident and strong person so it was really out of character. The
adjutant of the unit ...was very opposed to having women in the
corps. He was very sexist and picked up on everything about my
work, my social life, who I was sleeping with etc. I felt he was
conducting a campaign of abuse and harassment against me.

And a third that:

Right at the end of my course I was called into an office and threatened to
be charged for fraternisation with another member. This member video recorded
without my consent himself and I having sexual intercourse and sent it to others
via his mobile. I have never seen the video and did not know about it until I
was pulled into the [commanders] office the day I was looking at a charge. ...It
upset me that I was humiliated and threatened when the other member who I
believe should have suffered some sort of punishment was not even approached
even though they knew who he was.

Personal narratives are powerful. They are a catalyst for change. Whilst
the stories were important so the Review could understand the changes that were
required, they were even more important to engage the hearts and minds of the
ADF Leadership.

I had to make the case for change personal.

The ADF is one of the most reviewed organisations in Australia. It is the
subject of relentless media and community scrutiny. So delivering a compelling
report on its own was never going to be enough. Over the year it became obvious
that unless we could make the case for change personal the level of engagement
would not be sufficient to drive the reform agenda we had developed.

One strategy to do this involved the Chiefs – the Chief of AF, Navy and
Army. Aided by magnificent women with compelling stories, I arranged for each
of the Chiefs of the Service to spend time “standing in the shoes”
of the most vulnerable – to look into the eyes of individuals who loved
the ADF as much as they did - but for whom service had come at an unacceptable
personal cost.

I flew women in from all over Australia, many with their mothers - so that
the Chiefs could hear - not from me but from these individuals - what extreme
exclusion feels like, what it’s like to be on exercise for 2 months when
no-one speaks to you, what it feels like to be sexually assaulted by your
instructor, how you react when the next in your chain of command – the
very person you go to for advice violates you.

And the Chiefs heard the pain of mothers – mothers who had encouraged
their daughters into the Service - mothers who had believed that the enemy lay
outside the military not within.

These sessions were the defining moments of the Review. The Chiefs of each
service ensured the success of this strategy by listening deeply and dealing
sensitively with the individuals who came forward.

When I look back on the last year - this is some of the work I am most proud
of; the work that reinforced for me that when you engage the head and the heart transformational change happens.

We also conducted quantitative research. One of our surveys found that seven
in ten women in the ADF believed that:

  • A woman’s reputation regarding her sexual behaviour could inhibit her
    military career; and that
  • Experiencing sexual harassment or sex discrimination in the ADF would have a
    negative impact on career progress.

About one third felt that reporting sexual harassment, sex discrimination, or sexual abuse would
have a negative impact on their
career.[2]

We also undertook a second survey. For the very first time, we now have data
that compares the prevalence of sexual harassment in the ADF to other Australian
workplaces.

Our Survey findings indicated that sexual harassment rates for women in the
ADF are comparable with the general community at around 25%. For men, they are
around 10% which is lower than for the general community.

These figures are still too high for any workplace.

Coupled with the personal accounts provided by ADF members, this makes change
to the way women are treated in the ADF an urgent priority. It was clear that a
new way of addressing sexual misconduct was needed.

As a result, we recommended a new approach.

My thinking about this developed on a fact finding mission to the US, where I
spent a week in the Pentagon and met with US military officials in charge of
their own prevention and response office. They had taken an innovative approach
to their own issues. This included setting up a new office SAPRO and a new
reporting system, whereby complainants were able to make either restricted or
unrestricted reports. Restricted reporting allowed the complainant to register
their incident, access support, but not have to go through the entire reporting
process. They can say “I don’t want anything done”. Evidence
to date has suggested that giving individuals the choice of making restricted
reports has raised the reporting rates and in time led to more restricted
reports becoming unrestricted, better supported individuals who otherwise may
not have come forward at all. Restricted reporting was one of the concepts that
we encouraged the ADF to consider.

We recommended the establishment of a dedicated unit dealing with sexual
misconduct. We have called it the Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response
Office or SEMPRO. Its key role is to make the system more responsive and to be a
central point of data collection and analysis

We recommended that SEMPRO should:

  • Be headed by a one-star general, located at Defence Headquarters, and be
    adequately staffed by people with experience working in this area
  • Provide a 24 hour/seven day a week telephone hotline and online service,
    with call, click or text access
  • Collaborate with expert independent educators (many of whom are here in this
    room) to provide recruits and trainees with education respectful and healthy
    relationships, sexual ethics and a number of other areas
  • Provide an outreach service to all ADF establishments, including a program
    of regular visits and discussions
  • Enter into appropriate arrangements with expert external service providers
    so as to offer complainants an alternative avenue for support and advice if the
    complainant does not wish to engage with the ADF’s internal complaints
    system
  • Be the single point of data collection, analysis and mapping of all sexual
    misconduct and abuse matters, in order to map and report on prevalence, trends
    and key issues.

We made 21 recommendations in total, and all have
been accepted in principle by the ADF. Implementation teams have been
established, and having SEMPRO up and running as soon as possible is a top
priority.

This is not a task without its challenges. The recommendation to allow for
confidential or restricted reporting in particular has potential issues in terms
of vicarious liability charges against the ADF under the Sex Discrimination Act.

Having a functioning SEMPRO would be a great win for the women and men of the
ADF, and the organisation itself. It would go to the heart of several major
issues for the ADF, and give it a credible picture of the scale of the problem
it needs to confront. It would also send a powerful message that the
organisation is serious about confronting issues of sexual harassment, sex
discrimination and sexual abuse, and present the women and men of the ADF with
the assurance that their complaints will be handled adequately and
appropriately.

I feel confident that the ADF is moving in the right direction albeit slowly,
and that there are many talented and inspiring women and men in the ADF who care
about this issue as much as we do.


[1] ADF, ADDP 00.6 Leadership in
the Australian Defence Force
,
2.38

[2] From The Review into
the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force Survey

online.