Gagging orders have been silencing mothers for decades – it’s time to rip them up

Non-disclosure agreements are increasingly being used by powerful bodies to stop women talking about being mistreated, writes former assistant to Harvey Weinstein Zelda Perkins – who warns it’s making women suicidal

Why we are letting employers and perpetrators get away with this often illegal behaviour, which is then covered up with silence and a payout? (EPA)

Today, dozens of women stood head to toe in black, their mouths gagged with yellow tape on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, in solidarity with the estimated 435,293 mothers who are silenced every year by NDAs following discrimination, harassment or bullying at work.

Astonishingly, this behaviour has gone on for decades – mistreatment in the workplace, hidden as if it is a trade secret, with the victims ushered out stage left, never to be heard from again (literally).

The question is: Why we are letting employers and perpetrators get away with this often illegal behaviour, which is then covered up with silence and a payout? The push-back that you will hear from NDA enthusiasts is that victims need the protection of NDAs, to be able to move on. The reality, though, is that NDAs compound the abuse and most often halt people’s careers indefinitely.

New research from Pregnant Then Screwed has found that more than three-quarters of mothers who have entered into an NDA have experienced significant negative mental health impacts as a result of signing away their voice. Mothers are often victims of discrimination when they are pregnant, on maternity leave or when they return to work. All of these are vulnerable times – and the mistreatment they experience is layered on top of these life-altering moments.

When mothers sign an NDA hiding misconduct, it is often because it is the only option offered to make the suffering stop. They are inaccurately told that if they want the money they are entitled to and need to pay the bills and feed their families in a time of career uncertainty, they must agree to total confidentiality. When the dust settles, the injustice becomes apparent. As this study shows, mothers have overwhelmingly reported regretting signing an NDA – with just a quarter saying that they would sign again in similar circumstances.

As one mother told me: “I was asked to sign an NDA to cover maternity discrimination and a second time to cover harassment. The process of negotiating the NDA made me feel suicidal. The NDA was presented to me at the end of a gruelling process that had to end; otherwise, I would have had to sell my home. The lasting impact of the NDA was ruinous.”

Many argue that without NDAs, women wouldn’t get a swift and fair resolution to the discrimination they face, but legislation implemented in US states suggests otherwise. A recent analysis of US Employment Equality Opportunity Commission data compared the settlement rate for sexual harassment claims brought to the EEOC in 2017 – when there was no NDA legislation – with 2022, by which time legislation in several states banned NDAs for sexual harassment and other forms of misconduct and discrimination.

The data shows that there is in fact a 9 per cent rise in settlements, proving that the use of NDAs was actually stopping people from coming forward, as victims feared being gagged.

NDAs are an incredibly powerful tool for businesses today. Not only do they mask the perpetrator by ushering out the victim, but they also hide the monetary settlement. What this means, in reality, is that they enable employers to pay victims less than they are entitled to by law. This is not only immoral but, in many cases, illegal. Yet it happens behind closed doors time and time again.

This is not an issue of “he said, she said” but a clear discriminatory abuse of mothers by employers. It is unthinkable that the legal sector and government endorse it, hence our need to raise awareness and protest today so that politicians get behind our campaign and stamp this practise out.

For many mothers, they can’t physically fight anymore. As one mother astonishingly shared: “I call the scar on my throat “my leaving present” from the media organisation I worked for. For 18 months, I threw up almost every day from fear and misery. I knew I was being driven out, bullied, belittled, ridiculed, undermined, threatened. It was just a matter of time how long I’d stick it out.”

This has to stop, and we need your voices to speak for those who can’t.