Goal 4: People subjected to racism receive appropriate and culturally safe services and supports

This strategy recognises that pathways to reporting racism and discrimination do not always make people feel safe or supported. A lack of information, transparency and community trust in services can mean that racism is under-reported.

Reporting racism can be retraumatising for people if:

complaints are not taken seriously

perpetrators are not held accountable

appropriate services and supports are not available.

All Victorians should feel safe to report experiences of racism and discrimination. And all Victorians should have access to culturally safe services and supports.

To achieve this, we will focus on services to support people subjected to racism and discrimination, making sure community needs are front and centre and respond to changing circumstances.

We can improve community confidence to report racism by:

building trust with the community

ensuring complaints processes are transparent and effective.

Key areas for action

Initiatives to give culturally safe support to people who face racism and discrimination

Help local communities connect people facing racism with relevant support services and existing community structures.

Future priority areas

Explore initiatives to raise awareness of reporting pathways.

Explore initiatives to collect and publish data on racism and discrimination in Victoria.

Goal 4 case study

The Reducing Racism project, led by VEOHRC, aims to empower Victoria’s multicultural and multifaith communities to understand their rights and respond to racism. Over 4 years and 2 project phases, VEOHRC worked to make it easier for communities to report racism.
Achievements for phase 1 included:
- creating a deeper, 2-way dialogue, shown through ongoing engagement between VEOHRC and community partners – this has created an emerging and informed bank of stories illustrating the harm of racism and the benefits of multiculturalism
- running 22 customised education sessions with more than 540 Muslim and African leaders and members across Victoria with the Islamic Council of Victoria, the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights and Nelson Mandela Day Australia
- co-designing resources on rights, responsibilities and formal structures to address racism – partner organisations have used these in their own community education programs.
In phase 2 of the project (2020 to 2021), VEOHRC responded to emerging community needs around the pandemic. VEOHRC engaged deeply with multicultural and multifaith communities across Victoria to understand the impact of racism related to COVID-19 and to help people who experienced discrimination or vilification based on their race or religion. This included:
- empowering community members to understand and exercise their rights
- partnering with councils and service providers working with multicultural communities to help them better use human rights and equality law to respond to racism
- increasing reporting of racial and religious discrimination and vilification to VEOHRC through the Community Reporting Tool (CRT).
The program had broad community reach and achieved the following outcomes:
- A total of 1,249 people attended information sessions – 98% of participants said the content increased their understanding of their rights and their ability to report instances of racism.
- Across 4 local government areas (identified as culturally diverse regions) 144 people completed the Reducing Racism and Human Rights Advocates course. The course empowered staff from councils and organisations that provide services to multicultural communities to develop awareness and advocacy skills. An overwhelming 98% of participants increased their confidence to identify racism and their knowledge of VEOHRC’s functions. After completing the course, 92% of participants said they would report racism (up from 58%).
- The CRT was improved and broadly promoted, with 25 organisations adding the CRT to their websites.
- VEOHRC developed a racism information chatbot prototype.
- VEOHRC worked with the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council to create 24 in-language podcasts.
One of the greatest achievements of the Reducing Racism project was raising awareness of laws and reporting – especially in relation to the Community Reporting Tool. Many people from different cultural backgrounds would not report racism, or they wouldn’t report it because they wouldn’t know where to do it. The Community Reporting Tool may have already been available locally, but it wasn’t something we knew about prior to the project.
– Stakeholder[134]

Measuring our progress: signs of impact

We will know we have made progress when:

long term, we see fewer reports or complaints of racism to complaint and oversight bodies (down from 156 complaints to VEOHRC recorded in 2022–23) [135]

more perpetrators are held to account, including more successful prosecutions of prejudice-motivated crime by Victoria Police.

In the short term, we expect the number of complaints to increase as the public becomes more aware of their rights and how to report.

[134] Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Reducing racism phase 2 – impact report 2020–2021, Victorian Government, 2022, p 27

[135] Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, 2022–2023 annual report, 2023. https://www.humanrights.vic.gov.au/resources/annual-report-2022-23/

Updated 27 November 2024