Addressing The Ultimate Insult: Responding to women experiencing intimate partner sexual violence

KEY POINTS:

• Research and literature indicate that significant numbers of women experience intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV).
• IPSV commonly involves repeated and severe physical and sexual assault with extreme risks to womens safety.
• Policy and practice responses to women experiencing IPSV do not always recognise the importance of identifying and naming this experience. Subsequent support from the welfare, health and justice sectors is sometimes inconsistent, inaccessible or inappropriate to womens needs.
• We argue that the quality and suitability of service provision by domestic and family violence and sexual assault practitioners to women experiencing IPSV would be strengthened by: asking women about the possibility of IPSV; the development of clearer referral protocols; and the promotion of cross-sectoral information sharing and training.
• These developments need to occur within a context of large-scale cultural and systemic change within the justice, health