Reproductive coercion and abuse (RCA) is a serious yet often overlooked form of gendered family violence. From sabotaging contraception to pressuring pregnancy decisions, RCA strips victim-survivors of their reproductive autonomy.
While RCA is often framed as a healthcare or social justice issue, we know that it is also a legal issue. Community legal centres are already supporting people impacted by RCA through a range of interconnected legal issues, including intervention order applications, parenting disputes, family violence, and more. To better understand legal sector responses to RCA – and identify how we can better care for victim-survivors – we conducted a research project into legal responses to RCA.
Our report, funded by a Victoria Law Foundation Knowledge Grant, examines how legal practitioners can better identify and respond to RCA within the Victorian community legal sector.
Our research identified gaps for victim-survivors in our legal system
Throughout this project, our researchers explored case law, examined existing academic literature and conducted twenty-three focus groups to better understand how the legal sector responds to RCA (our full methodology is outlined in our report). Through this, we identified several key insights, such as:
- The community legal sector plays a critical role in identifying and addressing RCA, yet gaps remain in training, awareness, and the sector’s ability to frame RCA as a distinct form of abuse.
- Legal recognition of RCA is limited, with many areas of law addressing RCA implicitly within legislative frameworks, relegating it to a secondary concern, often overshadowed by family violence behaviours that have greater legal and societal visibility.
- Legal practitioners need training to recognise and respond to RCA. This includes building awareness of RCA, developing skills to identify it in legal consultations, using trauma-informed and culturally safe practices, enhancing cultural awareness, working with interpreters, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and improving knowledge of referral and support services.
Our research showed that the legal sector plays a critical role in identifying and responding to RCA
RCA is deeply intertwined with legal issues of immigration, family law, and gendered family violence. Many victim-survivors first disclose RCA to a legal practitioner when seeking help for family violence intervention orders, parenting disputes, or visa support.
RCA matters to lawyers – especially community lawyers – because they are often an early point of contact for victim-survivors. RCA often intersects with family law, intervention orders and other matters that require legal intervention. Improving sector understanding of RCA – and taking a trauma-informed approach to our response – can transform lives.
Our research identified tangible ways to improve legal sector responses
To improve legal sector responses to RCA, our research calls for:
- Explicit recognition of RCA in Victorian legislation.
- Trauma-informed RCA training and resources for legal practitioners
- Judicial education and training on RCA and its intersection with family violence
- Improved immigration pathways for migrant victim-survivors experiencing RCA
- Interpreter access and training for non-English speaking victim-survivors
- Integrated and holistic support for victim-survivors, including coordinated responses between healthcare, legal and social services.
- Consistent survivor-centred police responses, including identification, risk assessment and appropriate referrals.
Together we can create a more responsive, informed, and survivor-centred legal response to RCA. We will be offering a series of trainings and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sessions for lawyers who want to engage with RCA.
Read our full report online
To explore the full findings and recommendations, download our report, Reproductive Coercion and Abuse Report: Supporting the legal sector to understand and respond. If you are a legal practitioner interested in training opportunities, register your interest now.
