Responding to Indigenous Australian Sexual Assault

Janya Mccalman,Francesca Bridge,Roxanne Bainbridge,Crystal Jongen,Komla Tsey,Mary Whiteside

doi:10.1177/2158244013518931

Janya Mccalman, Francesca Bridge + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244013518931

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Abstract

Indigenous Australians experience a high prevalence of sexual assault, yet a regional sexual assault service found few Indigenous Australians accessed their services. This prompted exploration of how its services might be improved. A resultant systematic search of the literature is reported in this article. Seven electronic databases and seven websites were systematically searched for peer reviewed and gray literature documenting responses to the sexual assault of Indigenous Australians. These publications were then classified by response type and study type. Twenty-three publications met the inclusion criteria. They included studies of legal justice, media, and community-based and mainstream service responses for Indigenous survivors and perpetrators. We located program descriptions, measurement, and descriptive research, but no intervention studies. There is currently insufficient evidence to confidently prescribe what works to effectively respond to Indigenous Australian sexual assault. The study revealed an urgent need for researchers, Indigenous communities, and services to work together to develop the evidence base.

Highlights

Sexual assault is a crime (New South Wales [NSW] Ombudsman, 2012)
Twenty-three studies describing responses to Indigenous Australian sexual assault were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria (Table 1)
Sixteen studies described problems associated with sexual assault and recommended strategies in response (Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce, 2006; Cox, 2008; Cripps & Miller, 2009; Due & Riggs, 2012; Gordon et al, 2002; Government of Western Australia, 2002; Greer, 1997; Langton, 2007; Memmott, 2007; NSW Ombudsman, 2012; Stewart & Jubb, 2005; Thomas, 1993; Thorpe et al, 2004; Victorian Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service, 2010; Wall & Stathopoulos, 2012; Wild & Anderson, 2007)

Summary

Introduction

Sexual assault is a crime (New South Wales [NSW] Ombudsman, 2012). Sexual assault occurs when any person has sexual intercourse with another person without the consent of the other person and who knows that the other person does not consent to the sexual intercourse (NSW Crimes Act 1900, No 40; Australasian Legal Information Institute, 2010). Finding reliable data about the nature and extent of Indigenous Australian sexual assault is extremely difficult, as in some cases it is subsumed within Australian federal and state/territory governments’ definitions of, and statistics for, family violence (Keel, 2004). The statistics for family violence are not always available or methodologically reliable. In part, this is because victims and survivors may be reluctant to report experiences of sexual assault to Police or other agencies. Indigenous women are at risk of violence, being 12 times more likely to be the victims/survivors of assault than nonIndigenous women; in rural and remote Western Australia women are 45 times more likely to be assaulted by their spouse or partner than non-Indigenous women (Keel, 2004). Female Aboriginal children in NSW were found to be 2.5 times more likely to be at risk of sexual assault than nonAboriginal children (Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce, 2006)

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