Why it fails
Workplace harassment law exists in almost every country with a functioning economy. The rights are real. The protections are written down. And yet 99% of people who try to use them leave with nothing. That is not a coincidence. It is what the system was designed to produce.
82%
never formally report
AHRC Time for Respect 2022
51%
report their employment or career was negatively affected
AHRC Time for Respect 2022
1%
get avg. AU$4,000 after years in court
Thornton, Sydney Law Review 2023; ProjectUndeniable composite
The four stages of failure
Most survivors don't stay silent because they lack courage. They stay silent because the process designed to help them has been weaponised against them. Almost everyone goes through all four stages. The system is counting on it.
Stage 1
Doubt
“Is it just me?”
Stage 2
Denial
“He's not really like that.”
Stage 3
Delay
“Due process takes time.”
Stage 4
Disappointment
“After all that, this is what justice looks like?”
Stage 1
Doubt: “Is it just me?”
Mental health deterioration begins within three weeks of sustained harassment, before most people have even named what is happening. The system's first defence is making you question your own perception. Deliberately vague behavioural boundaries, mixed messages about “professional communication”, cultural normalisation of toxic behaviour. Gaslighting is not a side effect of the process. It is the process. By the time you know something is wrong, your evidence is already degrading.
Stage 2
Denial: “He's not really like that.”
When you name it and attempt to report, you hit a wall of institutional resistance. “Are you sure?” “It might be a misunderstanding.” “Have you tried talking to them?” HR departments that report to the same leadership as perpetrators. No anonymous mechanisms. Demands for witnesses. Demands for patterns. 75% of those who report face retaliation within 90 days. The institution does not close ranks accidentally. It closes ranks by design.
Stage 3
Delay: “Due process takes time.”
“Let's talk first.” “We need an internal review.” “We must be fair to all parties.” The average internal investigation runs 75 days. 43% of victims resign before it concludes. While the process runs, harassment continues, emails are deleted, witnesses are coached. The perpetrator, feeling protected, frequently escalates. Due process is not slow because it is thorough. It is slow because delay serves the institution.
Stage 4
Disappointment: “After all that, this is what justice looks like?”
Character assassination is standard defence strategy. For the 1% who reach a legal outcome, justice means money — not change. Average payout: AU$4,000. Legal costs to get there average three times that, paid by the person who was harmed. 95% of settlements include NDAs that protect the perpetrator from their next target. That is not a broken system. That is a system that has been perfected over fifty years. Of those who went through all of it, 51% reported their employment or career was negatively affected. Not the perpetrator's. Theirs.
The cost we're not counting
The legal failure is visible. The economic failure is invisible, and it is orders of magnitude larger. We are facing two simultaneous crises that make harassment-driven attrition not just unethical but existentially expensive.
743M+
people globally have experienced workplace violence or harassment in their working life
ILO-Gallup Global Survey, 2022. 74,364 workers across 121 countries.
200M+
women face sexual harassment at work specifically
ILO / UN Women
1–2%
of harassment complaints in Australia proceed to litigation. The system does not even reach the starting line.
Thornton, Sydney Law Review 2023; International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 2025
51%
of those who reported said their employment, career or work was negatively affected. Not the perpetrator's.
AHRC Time for Respect 2022
What it actually costs, per 1,000 employees over 5 years
$750K
Compliance training that does not change behaviour
Conservative estimate, 1,000 employees over 5 years
$1.68M
Investigation costs: 73 cases at ~$23,000 each
SHRM investigation cost studies
$675K
Settlement costs: 20% of cases reaching resolution
Employment law firm data
$2.03M
Talent replacement: 29 victim departures at $70,000 each
SHRM: replacement costs 50–200% of annual salary
$5.13M total cost to the organisation, per 1,000 employees, over five years.
Every dollar of that is spent managing the consequences of harassment the system failed to prevent. A different system, with timely, individual, certain consequences, reduces that cost by 245% on a conservative ROI calculation, with payback in 6.2 months. The maths of prevention versus consequence has always been obvious. Now it is unavoidable.
Why now
Two things are happening simultaneously that have never been true before. Together they create the only window in which a system like this can be built, and the strongest argument for building it now.
Crisis one
AI is replacing skills faster than people can retrain
The specialists who remain will be rarer, harder to replace, and more expensive to lose. Every harassment-driven exit from a field is now a compounding strategic failure. Not just for the individual, but for the organisations and industries that cannot afford to haemorrhage expertise.
Crisis two
The population is ageing and the talent pool is shrinking
Fewer people entering the workforce. Longer careers needed from those already in it. The economic incentive to retain diverse talent has never been more concrete. Systematically driving women, minorities, and marginalised people out of institutions is no longer just wrong. It is unaffordable.
What changes now
Traffic fines work not because people fear courts, but because the consequences are timely, individual, certain. It follows you. We are applying that same logic to workplace harassment. Making it financially unviable for organisations and for the individuals inside them. Not eventually. By design.
Where you come in
ProjectUndeniable is infrastructure. Infrastructure requires builders, researchers, advocates, legal minds, community organisers, and people who understand what it takes to change the conditions of a system, not just its surface. There is a specific place in this for people who are ready to do something that matters.
If you've been through it
Get the help the system never gave you
Free, anonymous, and built by someone who's been exactly where you are.
isthisokay.org →If you want to build it
Join the mission
Research, law, technology, policy, community. There's a specific place where your work changes the outcome.
Partner with us →If you fund change
Back the infrastructure
Grant-funded, no equity, no mission drift. The model validation is already done. Phase 1 is ready to build.
Funding enquiries →If you research this
Access the dataset no one else is building
Outcome data measuring whether survivors are still in their field 12 months later. We're building it from scratch, with rigour designed in.
Research enquiries →One act of purpose at a time. This is how the number changes.