Western Australia’s mines have appalling sexual harassment.

• Sexual harassment is pervasive at sites managed by major mining companies in Western Australia.
• Previous court cases served as the impetus for an investigation, which lasted over a year.
• Recommendations were made, including updating reporting procedures and training.

Your underwear drawer being searched by coworkers. a manager who requests sex in exchange for a promotion attacks, innuendo, and requests for naked images.

These are all stories provided to a state parliament inquiry by women who work in the mining sector in Western Australia.

Its report, which was delivered on Thursday, revealed that sexual harassment is pervasive at sites managed by major mining companies.

According to the historic assessment, the harassment was “largely condoned or overlooked” and was “appalling.”

In order to find iron ore, copper, and other minerals, some of the wealthiest mining firms in Australia, like BHP and Rio Tinto, operate substantial operations in the state’s remote Pilbara region.

Each season, thousands of employees are brought in and housed in accommodations modelled after village camps.

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The hard-drinking, male-dominated culture that has been allowed to grow at these locations has long been criticised.

Previous court cases served as the impetus for the investigation, which lasted over a year. It evaluated some of the biggest miners in the state as well as government authorities and received close to 100 submissions.

“It was utterly indefensible,” inquiry chair Libby Mettam told the state legislature on Thursday. “To hear the lived reality of the taunts, insults, and targeted violence, the sorrow and despair the victims suffered, the threats or loss of their livelihood that occurred, was shattering.”
The story quotes a woman who claimed to have been “knocked unconscious in her donga [accommodation] and awoke to find her slacks and underpants around her ankles.”

Another person stated: “I have visited around six different locations, and I can honestly say that I have experienced sexual harassment at each and every one of them.

The severity of abuse has ranged from offensive remarks and insinuation to lewd rumours, touching me without my permission, and being surrounded in a laundry room and actually fearing for my safety.

Other women described “shovelling,” a form of “powerplay behaviour” in which iron ore was thrown onto the cabs of female truck drivers if they refused to comply with sex demands.

Businesses like BHP and Rio Tinto have already acknowledged a problem and promised to take action.

BHP informed the inquiry that it had fired 48 employees for acting inappropriately over the course of two years and that it has spent A$300 million (£168 million; $206 million) since 2019 making locations safer.

After an internal inquiry revealed that more than 20 women had claimed actual or attempted rape or sexual assault in the previous five years, Rio Tinto pledged to upgrade camp amenities and make it simpler for workers to “call out undesirable behaviours.”

24 recommendations were made in the report released on Thursday, some of which included updating reporting procedures and training for the industry.

It advised regulators to look into the possibility of using a “record of offenders” to prevent repeat harassers from being “passed on” from one location to another without being held accountable.

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