MELBOURNE, June 25 (Reuters) – Australia’s Fortescue, the world’s fourth-largest iron ore miner, was hit on Thursday with a category motion lawsuit alleging the widespread sexual harassment of girls at its distant mining websites.
The swimsuit was filed by regulation agency JGA Saddler, which additionally launched comparable class motion lawsuits in opposition to Rio Tinto and BHP in late 2024. These circumstances are nonetheless winding their approach by the courts.
In 2022, the Western Australian state authorities really useful sweeping business adjustments after detailing what it mentioned was horrifying behaviour in opposition to girls and discovering sexual harassment and assault had been rife within the fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) mining sector.
“Time and time once more, girls are telling us that they do not really feel secure at the Fortescue mine websites,” JGA Saddler litigator Paris Hamrey mentioned in an announcement.
“Girls are telling us that they cannot do their day by day washing as a result of their underwear is being stolen from the general public laundries, they cannot go to the fitness center as a result of males are touching them inappropriately or following them again to their room,” she mentioned.
When girls do report incidents, they’re being demoted, dismissed, silenced or blacklisted from the business altogether, Hamrey mentioned.
The assertion included 45 testimonials from girls who’ve labored at Fortescue describing incidents they confronted. “I got here house one night time to discover a random man in my room,” wrote one lady.
Australia is the world’s prime producer of iron ore and lots of the nation’s far-flung mines are serviced by FIFO staff. Girls comprise 22% of the mining business’s workforce, up from round 18% at the beginning of the last decade.
Fortescue reported 22 circumstances of sexual harassment to Western Australia’s mines security regulator within the 2025 monetary 12 months, down 27% from a 12 months earlier, in accordance with its newest security report.
Of the three corporations, it was the one one to report a lower.
Final 12 months, Rio Tinto’s care hub, which helps workers who report an array of disrespectful or dangerous office behaviours together with harassment, logged 702 incidents, up 24% from the 12 months prior, in accordance with its annual report.
BHP reported 429 incidents of sexual harassment in 2025, a 3% enhance, in accordance with its annual report, which additionally mentioned that 100 people discovered accountable had been both fired or resigned.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; Modifying by Edwina Gibbs)
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.
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