4. Report problems. Legal and ethical

12. Discrimination

Discrimination means being treated unfairly because of a personal characteristic that is protected by law, like age, sex, gender identity, race or disability. These are known as ‘protected characteristics’.

In Victoria, protected characteristics are:

• age
• breastfeeding
• gender identity
• disability
• requiring an assistance aid (for example, a wheelchair or assistance animal) (
• employment activity
• industrial activity
• profession, trade or occupation
• lawful sexual activity
• marital status
• status as a parent or carer
• physical features
• pregnancy
• race
• sex
• sexual orientation
• sex characteristics (physical features relating to sex)
• political or religious beliefs or activities
• an expunged homosexual conviction (a person who has successfully applied to have their historic homosexual conviction removed from the record)
• a spent conviction (some kinds of convictions may be ‘spent’, and not appear on a person’s criminal record if they do not reoffend within a certain period).

Reference: https://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/discrimination-and-victimisation#

Discrimination, in relation to communication, could involve the use of verbally offensive or abusive language or images to discriminate against any of the protected attributes listed above.