Two important events concerning sexual harassment took place this week. Australian female-led hospitality advocacy group Sorry Not Sorry toured the United Kingdom, raising awareness of sexual harassment in the hospitality industry. Last year, its founders, along with other former staff for hospitality giant Swillhouse, reported being sexually assaulted at work, rostered alongside their assailants, pressured to take drugs, encouraged to have sex with customers, harassed, discriminated against, and their reports to management ignored.

Just days later, this masthead published an explosive exposé about the Merivale hospitality empire, alleging that its VIP customers routinely engaged in lewd and unwelcome sexualised behaviour towards its female staff. Swillhouse and Merivale have denied any wrongdoing.

Sorry Not Sorry collective on their Australian bar takeover tour to raise funds for their legal battle against former employer Swillhouse. Their campaign has extended to the UK.Credit: Samantha Wooller, supplied

In this same week, a new report by the Australian Human Rights Commission was released, highlighting the ongoing and seemingly intractable problem of sexual harassment. The problem is not confined to hospitality, but includes mining, media and the retail industries. Allegations against mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto include men urinating on women colleagues, sexual groping and masturbating in front of them.

But there is one glaring omission in the AHRC report. It is silent about what it, the relevant regulator, is doing about this endemic problem.

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© The Sydney Morning Herald