We often hear that knowledge is power. But when it comes to the criminal justice system and sexual violence, knowledge is also protection. And its absence isn’t neutral; it’s an engineered vulnerability.
Today, I released a whitepaper report with my organisation, With You We Can, titled What No One Told Us, exposing a national justice failure hiding in plain sight: most sexual assault victims in Australia enter the legal system without legal protection, without legal knowledge, and without any understanding of the process they are stepping into.
The silent sabotage of victim-survivors
Our justice system purports to act on behalf of the community. Yet in practice, victims of sexual assault are expected to shoulder the process entirely – emotionally, logistically, and legally – without structural support or accessible information.
According to national data, 92 per cent of women don’t report their most recent sexual assault. Of the few who do, 85 per cent will never see charges laid. This level of attrition is not because cases are not credible, it’s the result of a system that conflates endurance with justice, placing the weight of proof, resilience, and navigation on those least equipped and least supported to carry it.
Julie Sarkozi, a senior solicitor, victim advocate, and sexual violence specialist, captures the stakes precisely: “What happens at first contact with police, the willingness to investigate, the quality of information given, drives whether people stay or disengage.” Most disengage, not due to a lack of courage or commitment, but because the system withholds the very tools required to move forward.
A gendered blind spot, by design
This systemic failure is not gender-neutral. The law often claims impartiality, but that claim disintegrates in the face of gendered violence. From its inception, the system was not designed with women in mind, and certainly not with diverse women at its centre.
The report makes this painfully clear. Women with disabilities are more than twice as likely to experience sexual violence, yet are routinely dismissed as unreliable witnesses. First Nations women face systemic disbelief and institutional racism. Older women’s experiences of harm are reduced to cognitive decline. Migrant women risk deportation and sex workers risk criminalisation when seeking help. The further one is from institutional power, the more vulnerable they become in a system that professes universality but delivers inequity.
Legal literacy, the ability to understand and navigate legal processes, mirrors existing lines of privilege. It is an intersectional issue shaped by race, class, language, disability, and immigration status. Without equity in access to reliable information, Australia does not have equity of access to the law.
Consent education brought us this far. The law must meet us there.
In recent years, consent education has gained strong ground. We can’t have this conversation without acknowledging how far we’ve come. School programs, national campaigns, and victim-survivor-led advocacy have reshaped public understanding of bodily autonomy and enthusiastic consent. We’ve begun to teach people what their boundaries are, to say no, to speak up.
But what happens when a boundary is violated? What happens after consent is crossed?
Too often, victims are left to fight alone. The cultural conversation says we matter until we seek justice. Then we are met with silence, red tape, or outright disbelief. Legal literacy is the missing link between consent education and systemic accountability. Without it, all the awareness in the world cannot protect us in the moment it matters most.
Independent legal representation: A necessary disruption
That is where change must begin. There is a proven model, and it’s already working overseas. Independent legal representation (ILR) provides victim-survivors with a dedicated lawyer, ensuring their rights are protected throughout every stage of the process.
With You We Can’s report calls for a three-pronged national response:
- A National Legal Literacy Campaign: To inform survivors, families, schools, and frontline workers about legal rights, processes, and what to expect.
- A National Rollout of Independent Legal Representation (ILR): To provide victim-survivors with a legal advocate during police investigations and court proceedings, safeguarding privacy, contesting unlawful subpoenas, and ensuring continuity of support.
- Legal Process Education: Integrated across schools, universities, and professional training to equip the next generation, and today’s frontline workers, with the knowledge to navigate and support others through the legal system.
In jurisdictions like Germany, Scotland and Northern Ireland, these changes have led to greater transparency, reduced victim-survivor attrition, and stronger procedural outcomes. As Eleanor Danks, an Independent Legal Representation pilot lawyer AND victim-survivor states: “Independent legal representation changes two fundamentals: you finally have client-legal privilege (confidentiality), and you have a lawyer whose obligations are to you.”
This is political. And it should be.
None of this is apolitical. Legal literacy is often dismissed as dry or technical, but it sits at the intersection of justice, gender equity, and democratic participation. It forces us to ask: who is the law designed for, and who gets left behind?
When governments underfund legal aid, when they fail to communicate how the justice system works, when victim-survivors are reduced to props in a theatre of due process, they are weakening public trust in the institutions meant to serve us all.
They are giving license to public ignorance, ensuring that a perpetrator will never be judged by an impartial jury. Instead, they will be judged by people who think the victim pressed charges, who think the victim took the offender to court, who think the victim snapped their fingers and orchestrated a trial to ruin the offender’s life. As a result, it is usually victims, and not perpetrators, who are put on trial.
A call for courage – and for policy change
For decades, feminist movements have expanded the legal recognition of harm. From criminalising marital rape to securing reproductive rights, each step forward has been won by refusing to accept silence. Legal literacy is the next frontier.
Justice does not begin in a courtroom. It begins with a question: Was what happened to me a crime? And whether someone has the tools to find out.
This is a call to government: fund a national rollout of independent legal representation. Embed legal literacy in public education. Mandate trauma-informed protocols across every sector that engages with victim-survivors.
You have the data. You have the recommendations. What’s missing is the will.
And this is a call to everyone reading: this fight needs all of us. Share this message. Ask your workplace and schools what supports exist. Direct someone to our platform. Amplify the conversation. Because when harm is this widespread, repair must be collective. Legal knowledge should not be a privilege. It must be a right.
Feature image: Sarah Rosenberg.