A George, V Lowik, S Rosenberg, Y Lee, Nanushka, and S Noble, “Towards a culturally safe and trauma-informed court: a scoping review of populations that experience increased susceptibility to sexual violence”.

The views and recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, and are not recommendations, of the Judicial Commission of NSW.

In January 2024, the Commonwealth Attorney-General referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission an inquiry into the justice responses to sexual violence. The inquiry must consider in particular the impacts of laws and legal frameworks on populations that are overrepresented in sexual violence statistics, and on populations with intersecting identities. It is due to report in January 2025. This report provides a timely overview of the Australian literature on a selection of these intersectional “priority populations” at greater risk of sexual violence:

A scoping review was considered the most appropriate methodology as it is designed to swiftly identify key concepts from the evidence in a field and gaps in knowledge. It is particularly useful where the literature is fragmented and different study designs are encountered, as with these priority populations. While Australian literature was the predominant focus of the review, international literature was also included to augment the Australian research, given its paucity in many areas. Due to the pace of policy-making and potential law reforms in the sexual violence context, a rapid approach was adopted for this review to ensure that the above populations and their unique needs are acknowledged, pending further research being undertaken with victim-survivors and criminal justice system stakeholders.