In the remote mines of Western Australia, workers are flown in and out for their shifts. Women have been complaining about a culture of sexism for years. A year-long investigation has now revealed harrowing stories.
Workers are at work at a mine near Singleton, Australia on April 14, 2022.
Women are often victims of sexual violence in Australian mine camps. Harassment is the order of the day. This is the result of a year-long investigation commissioned by the Western Australian Parliament.
The mines of western Australia are isolated places of work. Iron ore is mainly mined in the deposits operated by the large Australian mining companies such as BHP Group, Rio Tinto and Fortescue. Workers here work in shifts – which means they are flown by the company to the remote mines for a two-week assignment. This is followed by a week of rest at home. The Australians call it “fifo” – “fly in, fly out”. The camps are well equipped: there are gyms, soccer fields and swimming pools. The companies also provide food.
Most FIFO workers are men – only one in five workers is a woman. With around 150,000 employees in the sector, there are 30,000 women compared to 120,000 men. It is well known in Australia that this imbalance can lead to problems: a 2020 survey by the Australian Human Rights Commission on sexual harassment found that 74 percent of women in the mining industry had experienced some form of sexual harassment in the last five years.
A miner reports: first knocked unconscious, then woke up naked again
However, the current report summarizes how serious the situation really is and what “appalling range of behavior” female workers are exposed to. The report, entitled Enough is Enough, contains stories from different women. One of them, for example, reported that she was “beaten unconscious” and that when she woke up she found “her jeans and panties around her ankles”.
Another woman reported how a man “several times put his hand in her top” and said nothing to it. Libby Mettam, the chair of the committee of inquiry who presented the report, said she was “shaken” by the accounts of taunts, attacks and targeted violence.
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The report is not just a status report, it also contains 24 recommendations on how the sector can improve working conditions for women in the mining industry. These include training, an improved incident reporting system and tougher penalties for offenders.
A kind of blacklist for repeat offenders was also discussed, according to a report by the Australian broadcaster ABC. Such a list can be used to prevent employees who have often attracted negative attention from finding work in another mine. But this is probably difficult to implement – due to the confidentiality of information, but also because of the threshold at which someone would end up on this list.
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A number of the major mining companies had introduced new processes and safety guidelines before the report was published. For example, more security personnel were recruited. Some companies have also taken tough action themselves in recent years: BHP says it has fired almost fifty employees for violations since 2019, and Rio Tinto is said to have fired twelve workers last year alone. The company also launched its own investigation, which found that over the past five years, more than twenty women had reported actual or attempted rape or sexual assault.
For years, women have repeatedly complained about sexual harassment, sexual assault, a culture of sexism and bullying in the mine camps. Media reports last year revealed the full extent of the problem; the industry experienced a kind of #MeToo campaign. This led to an official apology from the major mining companies. The formal investigation then began in July 2021, the report of which has now been presented.