The Human Rights Law Centre’s Whistleblower Project has just released a new report showing the distinct challenges women face when speaking out, and called for a Whistleblower Protection Authority to protect women whistleblowers.

The research analyses a year of client data from the Whistleblower Project, Australia’s first specialist legal service for whistleblowers. It finds women whistleblowers expose wrongdoing from across the public and private sectors, but speak up most commonly in healthcare, government, and education. In comparison to their men counterparts, they are more likely to speak up about the endangerment and mistreatment of others, making their voices critical in safeguarding against human rights abuses, sexual misconduct, and discrimination.

The majority of whistleblowers experienced retaliation for their actions, with women being more likely than men to report being bullied and harassed. In the healthcare sector, every single whistleblower — all of them women — faced retaliation for speaking up.

A Whistleblower Protection Authority is critical for supporting, empowering and protecting women whistleblowers, and all who dare who speak up. From the public who depend on ethical and accessible healthcare, to parents who entrust educational institutions with their children, a Whistleblower Protection Authority stands not only to protect our women whistleblowers, but also those who benefit from the wrongdoing they expose.