White Ribbon UK launches June campaign: Right to Respect

White Ribbon UK has launched its latest campaign, Right to Respect, which will take place throughout June 2025 to support an end to abuse towards women in the workplace.

White Ribbon UK announced the campaign by saying: “Everyone deserves to be respected at work. Together, we can create workplaces where everyone feels like a valued part of the team and feels safe to speak up”.

The leading charity in England and Wales engages men and boys to challenge the attitudes, language and behaviour that make harassment and violence against women and girls seem normal, excusable or ignored.

The charity said a recent survey showed that three in five women have experienced sexual harassment, bullying, or verbal abuse in the workplace. The Worker Protection Act 2023 introduced a new legal duty for employers, who must now take proactive steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. White Ribbon currently works with over 450 organisations through its partnerships and, during the Right to Respect campaign, will be working to ensure they understand their responsibilities and take meaningful action to prevent harm in the workplace.

British Medical Association (BMA) Medical Academic Staff Committee Chair David Strain recently made a plea for the medical union to become a White Ribbon-accredited organisation to enable it to “boost the struggle to dismantle misogyny”.

Addressing the BMA Medical Academic Staff Committee conference earlier in May, David Strain called violence against women a “public health emergency”, a “societal injustice” and, in part, a cultural failure. Putting forward the motion to become a White Ribbon-accredited organisation, he said this failure had been allowed to persist for too long, “including within our own workplaces, institutions and professions”, yet too often the burden of tackling it was placed on women.

He argued that the BMA, as a trade union and professional body, must do more than just support individuals when harm occurs but must take steps to “change the culture that allows harm to happen in the first place”.

White Ribbon accreditation provides this opportunity, offering a way for organisations to lead by example. This means:

• appointing ambassadors and champions, especially men, who stand up against harassment, misogyny and violence

• embedding respect and gender equality into training, policies and events

• creating a culture where violence is not just condemned in words but actively prevented in practice.

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