RMIT Prevention & Respect

RMIT has dedicated teams for both preventing and responding to gender-based violence and sexual harassment, harm and assault

Prevention & Respect

Our Prevention & Respect team leads all work associated with the prevention of gender-based violence, sexual harassment, harm and assault. This work is focused across key areas of governance, awareness raising, learning & development and our targeted innovation projects and activities.

We believe in the importance of piloting and attempting prevention innovation, so that we can continue to build on the evidence of what works and respond to emerging issues and concerns in our community.

Email: respect@rmit.edu.au 

Response

Our response team, Safer Community, provides students and staff with a range of supports associated with all forms of violence and harm, such as hate crime, discrimination, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and assault, family and intimate partner violence and other associated safety issues, both on and off campuses.

Both the Prevention and Respect and Safer Community teams sit within the Operations portfolio of Health, Safety & Wellbeing and are responsible for delivering RMIT’s Addressing Gender-Based Violence Strategic Action Plan 2023-2027 (PDF 19 MB).

Email: safercommunity@rmit.edu.au

The context for our work

Gender-based violence, sexual harassment, harm and assault are significant issues globally and are recognised National Priority Areas under Australia’s National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032 and The Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education

Our work is also aligned with the national leader in violence prevention, Our Watch and the guiding frameworks for both higher education and vocational education - Educating for Equality and Respect and Equality in TAFE

Current evidence tells us that those most impacted by these forms of violence and harm are all identifying women, with higher rates seen amongst First Nations women, women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, and women with diverse abilities and neurodivergence (Our Watch, 2021).

The evidence further shows that those who identify as gender and sexually diverse, including trans women and gender non-confirming people, also experience high rates of violence and harm (Hill et al., 2020). Importantly, national and international data highlights that most people experience interpersonal and sexual violence by an identifying man, regardless of the victim-survivor’s gender identity (Our Watch, 2021; ABS, 2023; Coumarelos et al., 2023).

RMIT as a community is committed to addressing gender-based violence (GBV), sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH), intimate partner violence (IPV), family violence (FV), and other related forms of violence and harm. This includes addressing the intersecting forms of inequality and disrespect that contribute to violence by attempting to build a culture of respect, collective care and safety.

As a dual institution, RMIT’s students and staff are represented in this data, and we know that GBV and SASH have significant psychosocial and life changing impacts for students, staff, and the wider community (AHRC, 2017).

RMIT is committed to building and maintaining a robust and transparent governance structure that both informs and is responsible for all the associated work within the Prevention and Respect and Response areas.

Our work is led from the top and our current co-chairs for the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisory Group for Addressing Gender-Based Violence are:

• Deputy Vice- Chancellor (Vocational Education) and President - Mish Eastman
• Director, Enabling Impact Platform (Information in Society) - Professor Matt Duckham

The following outlines both our process and responsibilities 

• Quarterly meetings of the Vice-Chancellor’s Advisory Group for Addressing Gender-based Violence
• Bi-annual reporting to the Vice Chancellor’s Executive
• Annual summary reporting to Council through the Council Sub Committee Nominations Remuneration and People (NRPC)

Please read our current policies  

• Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response Policy
• Gender-Based Violence Response Procedure (Australia)
• Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response Policy - Explanations and Examples
• Domestic and Family Violence Procedure (Australia)
• Domestic and Family Violence Procedure - Explanations and Examples
• Staff - Student Personal Relationship Procedure

Since 2016, when the Australian Human Rights Commission first surveyed students about sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities, we’ve worked hard to build a culture of respect and make RMIT a safer place for everyone.

We’ve come a long way – but there is still more to do. And we all have a role to play.

In 2023 we appointed two additional roles in our Safer Community Team of a Child Safety Advisor and a dedicated Senior Investigator.

The Senior Investigator provides specialist response for the investigation and case management of reported Sexual Assault, Sexual Harm and Gender-Based Violence incidents. At RMIT we also have a dedicated team of violence prevention experts who lead this work across the whole of organisation.

From 2023 all our annual reports provide data relating to reported incidents of gender-based violence, sexual assault and harm, including detailing our response and progress toward increasing our rate of conversion of disclosures to formal reporting. This is in line with the 2017 Respect.Now.Always Report and the Action Plan Addressing Gender-based Violence in Higher Education.

• Read our Respect at RMIT Progress Report 2017-2022 (PDF 29 MB).
• Read our 2023 Addressing Gender-Based Violence Annual Report (6 MB)
• Read our Addressing Gender-Based Violence Strategic Action Plan 2023-2027 (PDF 19 MB).
• Read our Planning for Change report (PDF 4.5 MB)

Please read our dedicated page to NSSS here.

Prevention is about stopping it before it starts.

Here at RMIT our prevention and respect area is committing to piloting new ways to find solutions and we are embedding a masculinities focus across all that we do. National and international data continues to highlight that most people experience interpersonal and sexual violence by an identifying man, regardless of the victim-survivor’s gender identity (Our Watch, 2021; ABS, 2023; Coumarelos et al., 2023). We also know that outdated ideas and behaviours and the pressure to conform to these, are holding some men back from reaching their full potential. 

Find out more about our Working Together with Men and our innovation approaches here.