Australian Law Reform Commission – Justice Responses to Sexual Violence 2024 Introduction

The ASRC welcomes the opportunity from the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) to provide a submission regarding the problems with existing responses of the justice system to sexual violence and to provide recommendations for reform particularly in regards to the experiences of migrant and refugee victim- survivors of sexual violence. [...] Breaches of intervention orders due to destitution and lack of support for victim-survivors impacts individuals and also clearly undermines the application of the rule of law as well as the public purpose and utility of intervention orders. [...] Research referred to in the ALRC Report regarding memory and responsive behaviour in the context of sexual violence, is similar to the research regarding the impact of trauma on the memory when conducting a protection assessment. [...] Decision makers have been seen to discount the report either on the basis that the report was written based on instructions from the applicant for the purpose of their migration matters, or on the basis of the decision maker's own assessment of how the applicant presented on the day of the hearing. [...] The above discussion reveals learnings from the inadequacies of the migration system in its treatment and lack of protection for victim-survivors of family violence and it highlights that reforms to the justice system cannot happen in isolation.