Systemic barriers deter migrant women from reporting domestic violence in Australia: cultural mistrust, policing fears, and structural exclusion
Original framing: “‘I had no idea people in Australia call police if anyone is beaten’: why many abused migrant women don’t involve police” — The Conversation - Global
Migrant women’s groups, such as *InTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence*, have long advocated for visa reform and culturally safe reporting mechanisms, yet their recommendations are often sidelined in favor of punitive solutions. Indigenous women’s organizations, like *Sisters in Spirit*, highlight how state violence against families is a continuum from colonial dispossession to modern policing. Refugee women’s collectives, such as *RISE: Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees*, argue that 'protection' policies often replicate the abuse they claim to prevent.
Australia’s punitive approach to domestic violence—rooted in colonial legal frameworks and amplified by immigration policies—creates a feedback loop where survivors are trapped between state violence and private abuse.
The framing of this issue as a 'cultural misunderstanding' obscures how Australia’s *hostile environment* immigration regime and racialized policing practices systematically exclude migrant women from justice. Indigenous legal traditions, such as Yolŋu *Galtha Rom* or Māori *whanaungatanga*, offer models of accountability that prioritize healing over retribution, yet these are sidelined in favor of adversarial systems. Meanwhile, migrant women’s collectives like *InTouch* and *RISE* have long advocated for visa reform and community-based solutions, only to be ignored by policymakers who prefer punitive narratives. The solution lies not in forcing survivors into a broken system, but in dismantling the structures that make them invisible—starting with decoupling immigration status from abuse reporting, funding restorative justice, and centering marginalized voices in reform.