Ending Sexual Violence Hub
2026 Victorian State Election
We’re calling on candidates, politicians and parties to commit to:
SASVic welcomes the government’s election commitment to introduce laws that will allow patterns of abuse to be allowed as evidence (this is called tendence and coincidence evidence) and to stop defence barristers using humiliating and invasive questioning techniques.
Model legislation on tendency and coincidence was a recommendation from the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse in 2017. This legislation would make a difference for survivors in cases where an individual has sexually offended against multiple children.
Legislative reform must be matched with secure funding to specialist services to support people impacted by sexual violence, including to navigate the justice system, resource the community to respond and prevent it from happening in the first place.
With your support, we can make confronting sexual violence a priority for the next Victorian government.
Sexual violence, including sexual assault, child sexual abuse and image-based sexual violence among other forms, is widespread and pervasive. In the last five years, since the Victorian Law Reform Commission inquiry into responses to sexual violence, Victoria has seen a 22% increase in recorded sexual offences.
Although positive changes have come out of this inquiry, such as the introduction of affirmative consent, only 12 out of 91 recommendations have been completed.
In the meantime, funding has stagnated and services face new challenges that weren’t captured in the inquiry, like AI-assisted harm.
The impacts of sexual violence and the distressing trends are seen first-hand by specialist sexual assault services, who provide essential support to people impacted by sexual violence. They are also too familiar with the way our systems can fail survivors. We frequently hear about the terrible experiences survivors have when accessing a forensic medical examination, with survivors reporting feeling like they ‘do not matter’.
We are giving our representatives the chance to show us that they are prepared to take action.
1. Secure and flexible funding for frontline sexual violence services
Despite population growth, funding for specialist sexual assault services has stagnated. Funding no longer scratches the surface of the essential services the community needs and expects.
Secure and flexible funding also includes preventing critical funding from lapsing and extending programs to avoid critical gaps in service.
Cover the cost of crisis care
Counsellor Advocates provide support to people who have recently experienced sexual assault. They advocate for them and their loved ones by helping them to understand the process, exercise their rights and have agency in a complex system. Sadly, this work has increased and become more complex, and the funding doesn’t go far enough.
Cover the cost of secondary consultation
Counsellor Advocates receive requests every day for help to respond to sexual violence, especially from schools. But requests, called secondary consultations, can come from schools, early childhood education staff, doctors, nurses, family violence workers, residential aged care workers and more.
‘Secondary consultations build people’s capacity to respond safely and effectively to disclosures and impacts of sexual violence,’ says Nadine Ramsey, Clinical Lead at South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault (SECASA)
It’s important that services are properly funded to meet the needs of the whole Victorian community.
Justice Navigators in every specialist sexual assault service.
Justice Navigators will soon be supporting survivors to understand their rights and to navigate all the support, compensation, justice and recovery options available to them, including both criminal and civil procedures. Learn more about the pilot sites.
The next step is embedding two Justice Navigators in every specialist sexual assault service by December 2027 so that survivors can get support for as long as they need and wherever they need it.
2. Safe, timely and reliable sexual assault forensic medical examinations
Survivors of recent sexual violence, including children, frequently have terrible experiences of providing forensic evidence.
Timely access to forensic medical examinations is critical to victim survivors’ welfare, given that an effective examination can require survivors not to wash, to remain in their clothes and to refrain from eating, drinking and using the toilet. This can already be a difficult experience and wait times and travelling long distances outside of their region can compound this.
These barriers are experienced by both adults and children, and the parents, caregivers and loved ones supporting them.
What is a sexual assault forensic medical examination?
After a recent sexual assault, a victim survivor may be given the option by police to undergo a forensic medical examination (FME) for the purposes of collecting any physical evidence that may be available that could be used to help investigate and ultimately prove that a sexual assault occurred. Sometimes this evidence is called a ‘rape kit’.
A ‘Just in Case’ FME means that a victim survivor can undergo an FME process before deciding whether or not to make a formal statement to police. The forensic evidence is generally held for 6 months. It’s important to note that victim survivors can report sexual violence at any time regardless of whether they have or haven’t had an FME.
We’re calling on the Victorian Government to:
- Resource the Specialist Sexual Assault Sector to be an equal partner with Victoria Police, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) and other services. It is our role to advocate for survivors and support their recovery and we need concerted investment to do this role properly.
- Empower survivors and their loved ones to be able to make informed decisions, understand processes and support their own wellbeing through resources underpinned by new research that brings together data and the lived experience of victim survivors.
- Expand Just-In-Case Forensic Medical Examinations so that survivors can request to have evidence collected by a forensic medical examiner within the small window of time that exists, while having more time to decide whether to report to police and start a legal process.
3. Pilot promising prevention approaches
SASVic has identified six promising approaches to sexual violence prevention, that are ready to be piloted. We looked at what already works when it comes to preventing sexual violence and what will target the drivers.
We’re now calling on the government to pilot these approaches:
- Strengthening the ability of adults to prevent child sexual abuse
- Early intervention in harmful sexual behaviour
- Feminist empowerment programs
- Engaging men and boys in prevention of sexual violence
- Realising the prevention potential of Victorian affirmative consent laws
- Building sexual violence knowledge and capacity of prevention workers
4. Sexual Assault Sector Innovation Fund
Specialist sexual assault counselling can be a transformative part of recovery for sexual violence survivors, but we know that one-to-one counselling doesn’t work for everyone. We’re calling on the government to invest in innovating sexual violence recovery to reach more communities and those most harmed by sexual violence.
A single point of entry
Anonymous web-chat
Multicultural community connectors
Peer-support groups
Outside-of-the-box research
5. YourSay
Our final ask will come directly from the community and decided by a panel of Victim Survivors through YourSay. We look forward to sharing this with you very soon!
