FIGJAM (Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melbourne), HRLC (Human Rights Law Centre) and Flat Out hosted the launch of the Ending Strip Searches Report at The QVWC (Queen Victoria Women’s Centre) on Thursday 5 March 2026.
Being part of the event as a panellist and having the honour of speaking about Aunty Vicki Roach’s foreword made me incredibly emotional. I had not cried like this since childhood, and I had not realised the extent of the harm inflicted upon me by Corrections Victoria while I was in prison.
In my speech, I emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault disguised as prison safety. Strip searching is not about safety – and the data proves it. For example, the report found that, of 221 strip searches in April 2022 in DPFC Victoria, no contraband was found. The report states that the current laws are outdated. Reviews need to take place as a matter of urgency and changes must be implemented.
Most prisons have body scanners in their facilities. These scanners are the same high-tech full-body x-ray scanners you see at the airports. If our governments are using them to keep our country safe, there is no reason that prisons cannot rely on them.
The report emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault. It showed that it is used as an intimidation tactic to degrade and make people feel less than human. For women who have been sexually assaulted, raped or coerced by partners, this has devastating long term affects. It re-traumatises us and causes significant ongoing harm. Testimony in the report told how it is a form of torture and control, how it made people fell that they no longer owned their body. “The practice of strip searching grooms us to accept the violation of our bodies as normal and standard procedure, putting us at further risk of being sexually assaulted” – Nina, FIGJAM
I have lived it and I am still trying to work through the trauma of it. I didn’t realise that it impacted me as sexual assault until I started talking about it after my release.
FIGJAM (Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melbourne), HRLC (Human Rights Law Centre) and Flat Out hosted the launch of the Ending Strip Searches Report at The QVWC (Queen Victoria Women’s Centre) on Thursday 5 March 2026.
Being part of the event as a panellist and having the honour of speaking about Aunty Vicki Roach’s foreword made me incredibly emotional. I had not cried like this since childhood, and I had not realised the extent of the harm inflicted upon me by Corrections Victoria while I was in prison.
In my speech, I emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault disguised as prison safety. Strip searching is not about safety – and the data proves it. For example, the report found that, of 221 strip searches in April 2022 in DPFC Victoria, no contraband was found. The report states that the current laws are outdated. Reviews need to take place as a matter of urgency and changes must be implemented.
Most prisons have body scanners in their facilities. These scanners are the same high-tech full-body x-ray scanners you see at the airports. If our governments are using them to keep our country safe, there is no reason that prisons cannot rely on them.
The report emphasised that strip searching is sexual assault. It showed that it is used as an intimidation tactic to degrade and make people feel less than human. For women who have been sexually assaulted, raped or coerced by partners, this has devastating long term affects. It re-traumatises us and causes significant ongoing harm. Testimony in the report told how it is a form of torture and control, how it made people fell that they no longer owned their body. “The practice of strip searching grooms us to accept the violation of our bodies as normal and standard procedure, putting us at further risk of being sexually assaulted” – Nina, FIGJAM
I have lived it and I am still trying to work through the trauma of it. I didn’t realise that it impacted me as sexual assault until I started talking about it after my release.
After experiencing sexual assault, you begin to believe this behaviour is normal. Your mind tries to keep you safe and will block it out. When I started to heal and work through the trauma, I realised that police, prisons and watch houses are using this sexual assault tactic to make people submit to them. In these places, they are the owners of your body.
This also happens to children in custody, children as young as 10 years old. These children are strip searched by two adults in a private room with no cameras. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse documented instances where sexual abuse occurred under the cover of strip searching.
So I ask why prisons are still allowing this invasive ineffective method to be used.
As Cathy from FIGJAM wrote in the report: “Nobody can give an answer as to why strip searching needs to be done. In this day and age, there are less invasive scanners that do the job. There isn’t any empathy for what it feels like when you’re strip searched. If there was, everyone would know and accept that there is no reason to put anyone through a strip search.”
Ask your friends and family to sign the petition on our website so we can make some change.
The website is:
www.endstripsearching.com/
If you want to write to us to find out more:
FIGJAM
Queen Victoria Women’s Centre
Wurundjeri Country
Level 2, 210 Lonsdale Street
Melbourne, Victoria 3000
After experiencing sexual assault, you begin to believe this behaviour is normal. Your mind tries to keep you safe and will block it out. When I started to heal and work through the trauma, I realised that police, prisons and watch houses are using this sexual assault tactic to make people submit to them. In these places, they are the owners of your body.
This also happens to children in custody, children as young as 10 years old. These children are strip searched by two adults in a private room with no cameras. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse documented instances where sexual abuse occurred under the cover of strip searching.
So I ask why prisons are still allowing this invasive ineffective method to be used.
As Cathy from FIGJAM wrote in the report: “Nobody can give an answer as to why strip searching needs to be done. In this day and age, there are less invasive scanners that do the job. There isn’t any empathy for what it feels like when you’re strip searched. If there was, everyone would know and accept that there is no reason to put anyone through a strip search.”
Ask your friends and family to sign the petition on our website so we can make some change.
The website is:
www.endstripsearching.com/
If you want to write to us to find out more:
