Women Beyond Walls: A new report, Ending Strip Searching in Australian prisons, has also been launched this month by Formerly Incarcerated Girls Justice Advocates Melbourne (FIGJAM), Flat Out and the Human Rights Law Centre. The report demonstrates that the use of strip searches is entrenched across Australian prisons, despite rarely uncovering dangerous items, and instead has a considerable impact in inflicting humiliation and trauma.

Strip searching is an unnecessary, degrading and deeply harmful practice that must end. It involves a person literally being stripped of their dignity – being forced to remove their clothing for their bodies to be inspected by prison guards, and often also being forced to submit to humiliating requests like bending, squatting and spreading their legs. Often people’s first experience in prison will be a strip search. In many prisons, people are subjected to strip searches repeatedly and routinely.

Read the full report below