News media narrowly shapes how we understand and respond to sexual violence. Yet scholarship has focused on representations of younger women victims with limited attention given to older women. This omission is concerning considering the invisibilisation and underreporting of older women’s experiences of sexual violence within both community and institutional settings. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of 298 Australian news articles, utilising an intersectional framework and the affective evocation of feelings of disgust, we argue that media reporting perpetuates limiting stereotypes of older age and rape myths. These compound to narrow the discursive construction of sexual violence against older women. We explore four findings: the focus on ‘stranger rape’ and home invasions; ‘elderly’ victims as vulnerable, believable, white; monstrous and disgusting perpetrators; and the prioritisation of a law-and-order, specifically criminal legal, response. Across these findings we also reflect on moments of rupture that encourage alternative framings that centre older women’s rights.

This article examines recommendations from Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) in submissions to Australian federal parliamentary inquiries that considered family violence. Our findings outline commonalities in what these organisations recommended under four themes, and show how these themes all centre self-determination. In so doing, we explore how ACCOs craft demands for structural change that emphasise the inseparability of First Nations women's experiences from the experiences of First Nations peoples more broadly. We highlight that these demands are not new but align with long-standing calls from First Nations women and communities made over many years for action on these demands.

Increasingly, suicide is being linked with histories of domestic and family violence. While some abusive partners kill their victim in a context of domestic and family violence and then claim it was suicide, in other cases the cause of death may be less directly connected to the abusive partner. For example, a victim of domestic and family violence may be overwhelmed by the abuse and determine to suicide – a form of slow femicide. In other cases, the perpetrator of abuse may encourage the deceased to suicide or to take part in a suicide pact, or pressure the abused person to agree to death as a form of mercy killing. Across these contexts, where a homicide offence is charged, suicide may be claimed by the accused, or assumed by investigators, to be the cause of death. Drawing on case examples, this article explores these various contexts, and considers the role of legal and policy responses to them. The article stresses the need for timely investigation of purported suicides as potential homicides where there is any suspicion of previous domestic and family violence and considers the possibilities for law and policy reform.

Since 2023, the Melbourne University Law Students’ Society (MULSS) has delivered a student-led Sexual Misconduct and Bystander Intervention Training (SMBIT) program aimed at fostering a safer and more respectful law school community. Mandatory for attendance at MULSS-ticketed events, the program has reached over 1,400 students and is facilitated in small groups by trained peers. Voluntary post-training surveys indicate increased student confidence in responding to disclosures and understanding university support services. While findings are encouraging, limited survey response rates limit the strength of our conclusions and constrain generalisability. This paper highlights the program’s potential and argues for further research to inform best practice across Australian university sexual violence prevention initiatives. --- Building respectful relationships on campus: A case study of student-led training in an Australian law school by Charlotte Hock, Heather Douglas, and Moira Negline is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Violence against women is pervasive. An estimated one in four women aged over 15 years old in this country have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. Recent high-profile cases of homicidal burn violence perpetrated against women have shocked the nation. Since 2012, the Counting Dead Women project has tallied 30 women whose deaths involved fire-related violence. Currently however, there is a paucity of evidence about the frequency and burden of burn violence against women in this population. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the frequency, sociodemographic characteristics, injuries, and outcomes of women admitted to nation-wide burn centres with burns caused from suspected violence with women with unintentional burns. Data were extracted from the country’s bi-national burn registry for women (≥ 18 years) admitted to nation-wide burn centres, between 2009 and 2022, with burns caused by suspected violence or unintentional burns. Statistical analyses were not performed due to substantial differences in comparator group sizes that would have greatly reduced the statistical power, reliability, and validity of results. Socio-demographic profiles, injury characteristics, and in-hospital outcomes were described and compared. Between 2009 and 2022, 157 women (2.5%) were admitted with burn injuries from suspected violence, and 6105 women (97.5%) were admitted with unintentional injuries. Women with burns from suspected violence were younger (median 36 vs 43 years) than women with unintentional burns, greater proportions sustained fire-related burns (38.1% vs 25.3%) with gasoline fuelling the flames (80.0% vs 38.0%), their injuries were more severe (median 2.0 vs 5.0 %TBSA), more likely to involve their head (42.3% vs 16.4%), and a greater proportion of them died (4.5% versus 1.5%). The perpetrators of burn violence were most often women’s current or ex-partners. Our study contributes to an emerging and disturbing body of international literature demonstrating the confronting nature and consequences of burn violence perpetrated against women. Our findings are likely an underestimation of the true number of women with burns caused from violence admitted to burn centres, as women do not always disclose violence. Whilst the wider problem of ending violence against women currently appears intractable, there is a valuable opportunity available now for burn centers to better protect women, by building capacity and skills within burn teams to be able to better identify women at risk and respond to women who disclose violence. NIL

This article considers how men imprisoned for non-fatal strangulation, a serious domestic violence (DV) offence, describe their acts, conviction and imprisonment. Drawing on interviews with prisoners convicted of strangulation in Queensland, Australia, we identify themes in relation to men's minimisation of harm, their arguments about strangulation as an optimal tool of control, and their conspiratorial views that they are victims of feminism and the justice response. We argue that men's accounts of strangulation, the law and their imprisonment demonstrate how prisons can be a site for the reproduction of gendered hierarchies, misogynist tropes, and justified violence against women. Our analysis contributes to research about men's representations of violence against women and highlights the tensions and complexities underpinning assumptions about the role of criminal law, and specifically, imprisonment, as a response to DV.

Despite its potentially fatal consequences, sexual choking/strangulation is an increasingly common sexual practice. Existing research suggests that its growing prevalence is partly a consequence of its popular construction as "risky yet safe." Few studies have directly examined how people frame and engage in choking/strangulation in terms of "safety"-what people think it means for strangulation to be (or not be) "safe" and how people think safety during strangulation can be achieved. Drawing on qualitative text responses from a survey collected in 2023, this paper examined whether and how Australian adults aged between 18-35 perceived choking/strangulation in terms of "safety." We identified and discussed four main themes arising from the data: choking/strangulation during sex can be safe; pressure/intensity is a safety mechanism; consent is a safety mechanism; and trust and communication are necessary. In consideration of these themes, we suggest that many Australian young people are not aware of the risks of choking/strangulation during sex and frequently equate pressure/intensity and consent, within a trusting relationship, with safety. Given the significant risks and harms associated with any sexual choking/strangulation and the resultant difficulty in achieving safe use, we concluded that appropriate education and information should be provided to young people.

The child protection system in colonised countries like Australia has long been a site of systemic injustice and harm for Indigenous children. In Victoria, Australia, despite multiple reports and legislative change, Aboriginal children continue to be removed into out-of-home care at alarming and increasing numbers. In this article we draw on the findings of the Yoorrook Justice Commission Report, released in 2023, to argue that Victoria’s child protection system continues to violate rights to self-determination and children’s right to their culture. We argue that a rights-based approach is necessary to remedy the injustices and harms of the child protection system and that this requires that the child protection system be reimagined in the current Treaty negotiations that are occurring in Victoria.

A stand-alone strangulation offence was introduced in Queensland, Australia in 2016. One of the elements of the Queensland strangulation offence is that the victim did not consent to the strangulation. This paper reviews the harms and dangers associated with strangulation before overviewing the debates about the use of strangulation during sex. Drawing on focus group discussions conducted with domestic violence support workers and men's behaviour change workers, we discuss four overlapping themes identified in the discussions. These were perceptions that: strangulation during sex is normalised; consent is not informed; it happens in the context of coercive control; and the requirement of consent opens a loophole in the strangulation offence. Considering the issues raised, and the clear risks and harms, we suggest that consideration should be given to whether it is ever possible to consent to strangulation and we consider possible reforms such as following the two-tiered approaches to consent used in the England and Wales law and elsewhere in Australia. We also conclude that law reforms such as these are partial solutions and there is significant need for more community education about the risks and harms of strangulation.

In Australia, strangulation has been explicitly criminalized in all states and territories. However, it continues to be a “normalized” sexual practice despite its potentially fatal consequences and associated short and long-term sequelae. This research aimed to establish the prevalence of strangulation during sex and examine predictors of positive perceptions toward sexual strangulation in Australia. Confidential, cross-sectional online surveys were conducted with 4702 Australians aged 18–35 years. Participants were 47