Work-related sexual harassment - Know your rights

What is sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment is unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature, in circumstances where a reasonable person would anticipate that the person who is harassed might feel offended, humiliated or intimidated by the behaviour.

The kind of conduct or behaviours that might be sexual harassment include:

• sexual comments or jokes, in person, online or in writing, including explicit comments or innuendo
• unwelcome physical touching, staring or leering
• repeated or inappropriate requests to go on dates
• emailing, displaying, or texting pornography, explicit material or sexual jokes
• intrusive questions about a person’s private life or body.

Know your rights

Sexual harassment has a specific legal definition in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth).

We have summarised this definition above, but for an explanation of the full legal definition, please refer to the Information Guide on the Positive Duty (2023).

The Sex Discrimination Act makes sexual harassment unlawful in different areas of public life, including when it involves workers or working relationships.

This includes if it happens at your place of work, online or somewhere else if it is connected to work. It includes behaviour from people you work with and from other people like customers, clients or patients at your work.

For example, it could happen:

• when working remotely, which could be offsite or from home
• at staff social functions, whether in the workplace or elsewhere
• after hours or during a lunch break in the workplace
• outside the workplace and outside of work hours between colleagues, including on personal social media accounts or online
• in a hotel room during work-related travel, for example, a conference.

We have developed resources to help people understand work-related sexual harassment.

Visit our resources to help prevent work-related sexual harassment

What can I do if I'm being sexually harassed at work?

By law, most organisations and businesses must try to stop sexual harassment before it happens, as well as respond to it properly if it does happen. This is known as the positive duty.

If you or someone else has been sexually harassed at work or in connection with work, or if you are not sure whether certain behavior is sexual harassment, there are things you can do to get help or advice.

Our Respect@Work Information Service can help you decide what to do if you are worried about sexual harassment connected to your work. You can also report sexual harassment you have seen or witnessed, or tell us about your concerns using our Positive Duty Online Form.

You may also wish to seek Support: Get help from support services, like counseling or employee assistance programs. These could be connected to your workplace or external.

What steps should organisations and businesses take to prevent workplace sexual harassment?

Under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), most organisations and businesses have a positive duty to prevent and respond to the following behaviour from occurring in a work context or in connection with work:

• sex discrimination
• sexual harassment
• sex-based harassment
• behaviours that create a hostile workplace environment on the ground of sex
• related acts of victimisation.

The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) requires most organisations and businesses to take reasonable steps to eliminate these unlawful behaviours, as far as possible. Doing nothing or only responding to reports of sexual harassment is not enough. The steps expected of each organisation and business will depend on things like their size and the resources available.

We have developed 7 Standards and 4 Guiding Principles to help organisations and businesses work out what steps to take so that they can meet their legal obligations under the positive duty in the Sex Discrimination Act to create safe and respectful workplaces.

Find more resources such as fact sheets, posters and guidelines.

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