"Female mine workers report sexual assault, harassment to independent Rio Tinto review", 1 February 2022

More than 20 women working for Rio Tinto have reported actual or attempted rape or sexual assault in the last five years to a formal, independent review commissioned by the company.

The review, headed by former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick (EB & Co), was tasked with reviewing company culture. The Rio Tinto report found sexism and bullying were systemic across the company's worksites. In a statement, Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said the findings were "deeply disturbing"... "I feel shame and enormous regret to have learned the extent to which bullying, sexual harassment and racism are happening at Rio Tinto.

The report said it did not investigate or make findings about any individual incident or allegation, or individual employees, but any employee who disclosed an experience of harmful behaviour and was seeking an investigation was "provided with appropriate referrals"...

Women were significantly more likely to experience sexual harassment, with 28 per cent reporting it compared to 7 per cent of males. Women on FIFO and residential worksites experienced higher rates of sexual harassment. Twenty-one women reported actual or attempted rape or sexual assault in the last five years... Almost half of the roughly 10,300 people who responded as part of the review process reported bullying... Employees spoke of "normalised" racism within the organisation, with survey data showing 11.7 per cent of employees experienced racism in the last five years...

Rio Tinto has committed to enacting all 26 recommendations made by the report aimed at preventing discrimination and an unacceptable workplace culture going forward...

Rio Tinto chief executive of iron ore Simon Trott said the report was confronting and underlined the importance of the changes the organisation was seeking... "We want people to come forward, we want to make sure that it's safe for people to come forward..."