Journalist and Women’s Rights Activist Tracey Spicer has started NOW Australia, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help those who’ve been sexually harassed, assaulted or intimidated at work.
Leading the national campaign, Spicer is joined by more than 30 high-profile women from the Australian media and entertainment industries including Isabella Manfredi, Missy Higgins, Tina Arena and Deborah Mailman.
Inspired by the #metoo and Time’s Up movements in the US, NOW Australia has launched a $250,000 crowd-funding campaign to connect survivors of harassment with legal and counselling services.
The organisation will also fund research and education programs, working with government, business, statutory authorities, legal and health sectors.
“We want to help those in Australia’s lowest-paid workplaces. At the moment, many simply don’t have a voice,” Spicer said in an interview with ABC.
“Women of colour, those with a disability, and LGBTI people are particularly vulnerable.”
The veteran journalist first formed NOW after taking to Twitter last October for people to share their #MeToo stories and received more than 1600 responses from across a range of industries.
“Storytelling is incredibly important – probably the most important [part of the #MeToo movement] – but it’s got to the stage in this movement where we need more than the hashtag,” Spicer told Guardian Australia.
“We need practical solutions for an endemic problem.”
In a recent survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in two women and one in four men have been sexually harassed in their lifetime.
