Justice responses to sexual violence

Women seeking asylum are known to form a particularly vulnerable group, highly susceptible to violence or sexual assault at every step of their journey towards protection. Even after refugees and people seeking asylum arrive in a recipient country, the added stresses of resettlement or visa instability to already existing psychological trauma make people particularly vulnerable to exploitation and sexual violence.

This submission seeks to bring attention to the refugee and asylum seeker experience in the context of sexual violence, who are often battling layers of intersecting vulnerabilities and are confronted by multiple challenges when seeking justice.

We acknowledge that sexual violence can be experienced by any person. This submission often refers to women, as that is the cohort that, in both research and in our experience in our legal practice, are most often victim-survivors of domestic and sexual violence. We want to also acknowledge that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are also more at risk of these practices.

The experiences of people with lived experience must inform the Australian Law Reform Commission’s resulting report from this Inquiry, and a model of co-design and consultation with communities is critical in establishing policies and legislation to address this issue.