Surge in sex assault reports but hundreds may remain hidden

Sexual assault reports and wait times for counselling have soared in recent months as women’s issues have dominated the national agenda, but hundreds of cases in Victoria may be going undocumented because a “world-leading” reporting mechanism has been shut down.

Victims are waiting up to three months to meet with a counsellor in Victoria, up from an average of about five weeks, and the number of calls to the state’s crisis hotline has more than doubled to 700 per month.

Katherine Dowson, director at SECASA.Credit:Monash Health

Katherine Dowson, a Sexual Assault Services board member who runs the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault (SECASA), said a “perfect storm” had been created by the growing awareness of sexual crimes and pandemic-induced service reductions.

“We are experiencing huge demand,” Ms Dowson said, adding the surge was driven by younger women who were “inundating” the system.

“We saw a similar peak during the George Pell case, but not to this extent.”

But hundreds of survivors may be keeping their stories private and not being connected to support services because a nation-first anonymous, online reporting tool – which RMIT researchers believed was the best of its kind in the world – was closed down last year.

The Sexual Assault Report Anonymously (SARA) website, which was run by SECASA, received about 1200 reports each year by victims who did not feel comfortable making a formal police complaint. Their reasons for not wanting to make police reports varied, including living at home with a perpetrator who may react violently.

Mr Dowson said “reams” of cases were likely going undocumented without SARA, which was deemed to be too resource-intensive for a regional agency like SECASA to operate. She said an informal reporting mechanism was desirable but it needed to be run by the appropriate organisation.

SARA reports were sent to police, who valued the information which could be used if a formal investigation was ever launched. More than half the reports contained a victim name, and those people were connected to counselling. Perpetrators named were kept on file by police and alleged repeated offending could be tracked. A significant portion of victims, after meeting with counsellors and being guided to appropriate police units, ended up reporting to police and many informal reports ended in convictions.

Sexual consent activist Chanel Contos – who, along with Australian of the Year Grace Tame and former Canberra political staffer Brittany Higgins, has been a leading voice in the national discourse about sexual assault – is pushing for Victorian authorities to fill the gap created by SARA.

Chanel Contos.Credit:Liliana Zaharia

Victoria now lags behind NSW and Queensland which both have alternative reporting mechanisms run by police. The Victorian opposition is campaigning for Victoria to set up a similar system. Opposition police spokesman David Southwick met with Chief Commissioner Shane Patton last week to discuss the initiative and said the current model was “making it harder for survivors to come forward”.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said the government was “always looking to improve” reporting avenues and a Victoria Police spokeswoman said the force may consider an informal report scheme.

Ms Contos, 23, said SARA’s closure reflected outdated attitudes to reporting that ignored contemporary research on how to make victims comfortable to come forward. “We need a way for victims of sexual assault to report informally from the comfort of their own home,” she said.

“Many sexual assault survivors are not willing to go through the court system and therefore do not want to report. We need to give them the opportunity to hold their perpetrators accountable for their actions through this informal system.“

RMIT associate professor Georgina Heydon has studied SARA and its international counterparts and said the Victorian scheme was unparalleled. Hundreds of women each year may now be keeping their accounts private because SARA had shut down, she said.

Her research showed victims believed it was critical that information was passed onto police, so it was recorded and could be used in future, but many felt it was “unthinkable” to go through the judicial process which can fuel trauma. She said victims reporting in the privacy of their home were often more honest about incidents than they would be when reporting in person.

“SARA put power and control in the hands of the survivor to say exactly what they want to say then step back … and no one will contact them unless they want to take it further,” she said.

“It’s about creating a safe space that doesn’t look like a police space.

“The worst part is [the approximately 50 per cent of SARA reporters who would leave a contact name] now won’t be linked to support services. Many will now be alone with their story and it may never get told.“

Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

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