The Empowering Women and Girls in Sport Integrity Program aims to boost ongoing efforts to tackle abuse, bullying, discrimination and sexual misconduct for women and girls in sport.
The program is focussed on safety and integrity issues facing women and girls in sport. The Australian Government has invested $1.125 million over 5 years into the program, from 2023-24 to 2027-28.
Program aims
Through this program, we are looking to ensure a proactive, coordinated and sustainable approach to women and girls' safe participation in sport.
We are the agency responsible for preventing and addressing threats to sport integrity and this means we have a significant role to play in protecting women and girls. We want to help them thrive in sport at all levels.
Women’s sport has experienced a period of extraordinary growth in recent times.
There is growing concern around integrity threats to women and girls, such as:
- Online abuse
- Discrimination
- Child safeguarding
- Competition manipulation
- Doping risks
These threats can cause serious long-term harm and negative impacts on equal participation. They also limit the benefits that women and girls can provide to sport.
All people in sport need to understand that abuse, bullying, harassment, sexual misconduct, discrimination, victimisation, vilification and cheating are not acceptable.
Key numbers
of CEOs were women across 65 Australian Sport Commission (ASC) funded National Sporting Organisations in 2023.
of Board Chairs were women, across 65 ASC funded National Sporting Organisations in 2023.
of National Integrity Framework related complaints that progressed to investigation, were about alleged prohibited conduct against women or girls (July - Dec 2024).
Online perceptions
- Research has found that women athletes received 3 times as many negative comments online as men (27% compared to 9%).
- Over a quarter of all comments about sportswomen were negative, sexist, sexualised, or belittled women's sports.
(Source: Plan Australia International, April 2019).
Program strategy
Our Program strategy seeks to:
- support and encourage women and girls' participation
- support and encourage sustained leadership in all aspects of sport
- continue to invest in evidence-based research to inform future policy and procedure.
The Program’s structure is based on 4 key pillars:
1. Support women in leadership by strengthening integrity environments
In collaboration with key partners, we will seek to:
- strengthen the integrity environment for women and girls in sport
- influence and enhance positive behaviours from those in key leadership positions
- remove integrity threats (such as discrimination, harassment and abuse) from leadership environments
- remove barriers for women entering and remaining in long term leadership roles.
2. Empower through education
- We want to strengthen our own agency's integrity frameworks, policies and processes.
- We seek to empower women and girls to access and use these policies and procedures, including the 1800 Safe Sport Hotline.
- We aim to educate and empower, deter and prevent integrity threats that create barriers for women and girls.
3. Influence through partnership
- We will partner with women and girls’ initiatives across government, sport, industry and business.
- We want to embed integrity initiatives to proactively address integrity threats to women and girls.
4. Understand and strengthen the integrity environment
We are conducting intelligence assessment of the environment and will also:
- partner in research
- identify research priorities.
This work will inform future policy, procedures and education to proactively strengthen the sport integrity environment.
Alignment with national sports strategies
We have aligned the Program with Australian Government investments to support equal opportunities in cultural, recreational and sporting activities at all levels.
We seek to improve the integrity environment as a foundation to support the successful implementation of these national strategies and policies:
- National Sport Strategy 2024–2034 Focus on healthy, active, connected communities.
- National High-Performance Sports Strategy (Win Well) Achieve excellence while maintaining integrity.
- National Sport Participation Strategy (Play Well) Promote physical activity and inclusivity.
- Pathway to Empower – A Strategy for Women and Girls in Sport Increase participation and leadership.
- National Gender Equity in Sports Governance Policy Ensure fair representation and opportunities for women.
Program snapshot
