Open Door / Women Veteran's Australia / DFWA

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide has made one thing clear: if Defence is serious about reform, it must confront the way it talks about, and responds to, military sexual violence.

Language not only reflects institutional values, it shapes justice outcomes, influences leadership accountability, and has the power to either retraumatise or validate survivors.

But this goes beyond terminology alone

Several recommendations of the Royal Commission’s final report reveal a broader systemic failure: how Defence’s language, processes, and structures have too often obscured the severity of harm, sustained cultures of silence, and failed to deliver meaningful accountability for survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders alike.The consequences are significant, and this symposium is a call to action to name the harm, centre survivors, and reform systems that have for too long protected power and reputation over people

Join us at this symposium to:•Examine how language shapes institutional culture, leadership behaviours, and survivor outcomes.•Interrogate how euphemisms perpetuate ambiguity and obstruct justice.•Explore the relationship between language, moral injury, institutional betrayal, and elevated psychosocial distress.•Analyse the role of hierarchical structures in enabling silence, deflecting accountability, and disempowering victim-survivors.•Link language reform to broader Defence capability priorities as an employer of choice for all Australians.•Help co-design recommendations supporting the implementation of cultural reform related to Royal Commission Recommendations.