Submission on National Inquiry into Workplace Sexual Harassment
Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation appreciates the opportunity to contribute a submission to the very important National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces.
We commend the Australian Human Rights Commission for investigating this unfortunately widespread problem. We do not use this submission to comment on individual sexual harassment cases we have experienced or witnessed. Rather, writing as a movement against sexploitative practices in all their many manifestations, we wish to draw your attention to broader issues in Australian society which influence, drive and reinforce sexual harassment. In our extensive experience of grassroots campaigning, we believe that the interrelated issues of pornography, objectification of women and sexualised imagery in advertising are all pertinent to the issue of workplace sexual harassment. These are areas that need serious regulatory overhaul and a human rights-based approach to prevent the harms they cause.
Combatting Child Sexual Exploitation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill seeks to amend a number of Acts to improve the Commonwealth framework of offences relating to child pornography material and child abuse material, overseas child sexual abuse, forced marriage, failing to report child sexual abuse and failing to protect children from such abuse.
Click here to read Collective Shout's full submission.
Submission on the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 and Online Content Scheme Reviews
Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the reviews of the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 and Online Content Scheme.
Australian children are growing up in a digital, interactive, internet-enabled society and culture. While the benefits of such connectivity can be great, Collective Shout and our supporters are also very conscious of the potential for the internet to enable malicious, and illegal activities against children, as well as more broadly exposing children to harmful and inappropriate content. We share in the growing expert concern about the experiences children and young people risk being exposed to online, and the consequences of these experiences on their wellbeing and healthy
development.
We also hold significant concerns for those responsible for the welfare of children, particularly (although not only) parents, as they are attempting to maintain their childrens’ online safety while helping them to navigate life in a digital world.
More broadly we are concerned with the threat to adults, especially women, from cyber bullying, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and the pervasive presence of pornography that presents a distorted view of women and feeds toxic masculinity through what Dr Michael Flood has aptly described as “rape training”.
Collective Shout’s submission to the Modern Slavery Bill 2018 (Provisions)
Collective Shout has contributed a submission to the Commonwealth Modern Slavery Bill 2018.
The drafted federal Bill was introduced to the House of Representatives in June 2018, which shortly follows NSW’s Modern Slavery Bill being passed through the NSW Legislative Council in the same month.
Collective Shout acknowledges the government’s efforts to consult organisations and individuals to improve their understanding of modern slavery. However, we join other voices in recognising that there are serious deficits in the drafted Bill.
The proposed Modern Slavery Bill does not adequately comprehend this reality of modern slavery as a commercial activity centred on the global sex industry and its entrepreneurs in Australia. The failure of the Bill’s provisions to mention commercial sexual exploitation as a recognised hot-spot of modern slavery, and to enact special provision against Australian businesses that promote, participate in, or oversee activities relating to the sex industry, renders it legally ineffective against a major form of human servitude, and, in fact, the form of servitude that arguably establishes a blueprint for all other forms of slavery.
Read moreSubmission to Joint Committee on Law Enforcement: Inquiry into human trafficking
On 2 December 2015, the Joint Committee on Law Enforcement initiated an inquiry into human trafficking.
This inquiry lapsed at the end of the 44th Parliament.
On 12 October the committee re-initiated this inquiry in the 45th Parliament.
All correspondence and evidence previously received for this inquiry has been made available to the new committee. This means that submissions already provided to the committee about this issue do not need to be re-submitted.
The committee intends to refer to the evidence received during the 44th Parliament, in addition to any new evidence received.
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