- For the past two months,
Australia has been shocked and exhausted
by the news coming out of Canberra.
In March, thousands of people marched around the country
to protest the sexual assault, abuse,
and harassment of women in Australia.
People are hurt,
and they're frustrated by the way
allegations have been handled by the federal government.
The response from politicians
to these sexual assault allegations
has been a grim reflection of how poorly
accusations are treated in public conversations.
And more broadly than that,
it's a painful reminder
of how victims of sexual assault in Australia
are time and time again failed by our justice system.
Some of the responses from members of government
to the recent allegations have been really disappointing.
When Brittany Higgins came forward with her story
that she had been raped by a colleague in Parliament House,
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton
described it as a "he said, she said incident."
Then just a few days later,
Defense Minister Linda Reynolds
was forced to publicly apologize
for calling Higgins "A lying cow."
Now an investigation into who in parliament knew what
and when about Higgins' allegations
has been paused for weeks,
without the prime minister really making that public.
- It's obviously been a pretty disappointing response
that we've been seeing.
- The disappointment of how Brittany Higgins' story
was handled by politicians in the public light
was only compounded a few weeks later,
when rape allegations were leveled
against Attorney-General Christian Porter.
When the allegations came to light,
there were immediate calls for Porter
to submit to an independent inquiry,
but that hasn't happened.
Scott Morrison has refused the idea, instead stating that,
"Porter is an innocent man under our law."
This pattern of disappointing responses
to sexual assault allegations is an old one,
and its consequences on the people brave enough
to come forward with their stories can be severe.
Both Higgins' and her partner's careers
have been directly affected by her decision
to come forward with the allegations.
Higgins said she's been unable to find work,
and her partner made the decision
to leave his job in Canberra,
because he was worried about repercussions.
Survivors of sexual assault
are frequently forced to face this kind of backlash,
on top of the trauma of experiencing sexual assault
in the first place.
Government responses like the ones we've seen
over the last few weeks feed into why the decision
to report a sexual assault
is an incredibly difficult one for survivors to make.
- A lot of it will be playing into the myths
that surround sexual assault.
So that blame and shame
and denial of sexual assault survivors experiences.
- Victim blaming isn't exactly rare.
One in eight Australians believe that if a woman is raped
while she's affected by alcohol or drugs,
she's at least partly responsible.
And on top of that,
people tend to doubt the accounts of survivors.
- That can happen from the very first moment
that someone discloses,
people asking questions of them
instead of just listening and hearing what they're saying.
- The number of false allegations
of sexual assault is incredibly low.
It's tricky to estimate accurately,
but studies have shown it's anywhere
from two to 5% of reports,
and yet four in 10 Australians believe
that women lie about sexual assault to get back at men,
and around one in 10 think
that women are probably lying about rape
if they don't report it quickly.
Beliefs like that directly affect
whether incidents of assault get reported at all.
It's really difficult to estimate how many people
who've experienced sexual violence in Australia
actually go to the police after it happens.
Some studies have shown that only around 20% do,
but official estimates in Australia
are even smaller than that, around 13%.
In 2016, that amounted to around
178,000 unreported sexual assaults.
For Indigenous people,
fear or mistrust of the police
can make them even more nervous
than non-indigenous Australians about reporting incidents.
But the problems here aren't just about if
or when incidents get reported,
they're also about Australia's entire justice system.
Survivors run into massive barriers
at every stage of the justice system.
It starts with police,
where survivors can be faced
with some really biased responses
that feed back into that preexisting stigma
that stops people coming forward in the first place.
- It's still victims being asked what they were wearing,
why they made certain decisions to go certain places,
or why they met up with certain people.
- But officers have a huge amount of discretion
about whether or not they choose
to investigate an allegation once it's been made.
A lot of this comes down to training police
on how to handle sex crimes and assist survivors.
And one ABC investigation from last year
found that whether or not a sexual assault investigation
leads to legal action depends pretty heavily
on which state or territory the report is filed in.
In New South Wales, for example,
an investigation is half as likely
to lead to legal action than in Victoria.
When reports are filed and investigated,
it's then rare for cases to actually make it to court.
Over 23,000 sexual assaults were reported to police in 2016,
and legal action was only taken
in and around 4,700 of those cases.
The fairly obvious but unsatisfactory reason
for dismissing cases is that there isn't enough evidence
to prove the claim either way.
For the cases that do make it to court,
that in itself can be a really traumatic experience.
Grueling cross-examinations from lawyers
can totally ignore the impact
the trauma of sexual assaults actually has
on a person's memory,
and there are still defenses available
in some Australian states that can bend cases
in favor of the people who have been accused.
From start to finish,
it can be a horrendous process for people
at the most vulnerable period of their lives.
- The court processes is a whole kind of re-traumatization.
And then even for those who are successful,
we're seeing pretty minimal sentences
for sex offenses as well.
- The justice system has changed in a couple of ways
to try and address Australia's massive
underprosecution of sex crimes.
Police are increasingly being trained to be trauma informed,
and sexual assault support services are available
in every state and territory
to mediate those interactions with cops.
That can make reporting assaults a much more comfortable
and just experience for survivors.
Increasingly, survivors are also being given the option
to make informal reports with police.
Almost all Australian states and territories
have a system for this,
and it can be really useful for tracking repeat offenders.
But a lot of people think there needs to be a biggest shift
in how the law approaches sexual assault in general.
Scott Morrison reaffirmed
with the allegations against Porter
that our legal system is built on the tenant
that a person is innocent until proven guilty.
But in the case of sexual assaults,
that assumes a victim is lying
until it's proven that they're not.
Some lawyers want to change parts of the legal system
to get the balance right for survivors,
like scrapping unfair cross-examination processes.
All states and territories now have these things
called rape shield laws in place
to stop survivors being put on trial
and being forced to answer questions
about things like their sexual history and reputation.
But some experts want to go even further
in how cross-examination is regulated,
and see a legal framework that protects survivors more.
It's a big idea which would alter
some pretty fundamental parts of our justice system.
But beyond that system,
one of the most effective ways
to change how we address sexual assault in a legal sense
would be to break through the stigma
around reporting these incidents.
In that sense, people like Brittany Higgins
and Australian of the Year Grace Tame
have become beacons of hope.
And for some advocates,
even though this moment is hard and traumatic,
it also feels full of promise
that Australia could finally face up to these problems
and listen to survivors.