Formerly incarcerated women, trans and gender diverse people alongside advocacy and human rights groups, have called for governments across Australia to permanently prohibit the practice of strip searching people in Australian prisons.

In a joint submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s inquiry into legal responses to sexual violence, the groups draw on decades of advocacy by lived experience advocates calling out strip searching for what it is: sexual abuse at the hands of the state.

Strip searching involves a person being forced to remove all their clothing repeatedly in front of prison guards. Often the person must also submit to bending, spreading and coughing.

The forced removal of clothing constitutes dehumanising and degrading conduct that would be considered sexual assault if imposed in the wider community, yet it is routinely carried out with impunity behind prison walls. The practice is ripe for abuse, and is frequently used to humiliate and control people in prison.

Read the joint submission by the Human Rights Law Centre, Flat Out and FIGJAM here