News item - The Examiner - Tasmania's prison system is doing traumatised women 'more harm than good'
By Owen Sinclair
Posted to The Examiner, 04/11/25
Tasmania’s prison system is doing traumatised women ‘more harm than good’
Kianna Whaling, a lived experience advocate said, “It’s not a place where you’re able to rehabilitate. I think it’s designed more to institutionalise inmates, rather than put them on the right path to recovery. And that’s for all inmates in the women’s prison.”
News item - Tasmanian Times - Systems Abuse Follows Women Behind Prison Walls
By Tasmania Times, 30/10/2025
The death of Chelsea Bracken at Mary Hutchinson Women’s Prison has exposed a critical failure – the correctional system itself perpetuates the abuse that brought women there.
Engender Equality CEO Alina Thomas calls for urgent reform –
“We must move away from punishing victim-survivors for surviving violence and instead focus on support and rehabilitation.”
News item - Report: system failing family violence victims
By Bridget Clarke
Hobart Mercury, 21/10/25
A damning report by a Tasmanian family violence organisation has laid bare the extent to which institutions intended to support victim-survivors are failing to address, and often, perpetuating abuse.
News item - Lifting the lid on head injuries through domestic violence
Deb Thomson, Lived Experience Advocate spoke with Olivia Hicks on iHeart Tassie on 4 September, 2025 to discuss head injuries caused by domestic violence.
Publication - Systems abuse and family violence in Tasmania: The importance of lived experience expertise
Alina Thomas, Engender Equality CEO and Kianna Whaling, Lived Experience Advocate spoke with Tracey Strong on ABC Radio Breakfast (Hobart) on Monday 20 October, 2025 to discuss the new report on systems abuse, next steps and the importance of lived experience expertise
News item - Too many times victims dismissed
By Lauren Richardson
The Examiner, Monday September 22, 2025
Engender Equality advocate and victim-survivor Deborah Thomson said sports concussions were getting the attention and awareness they needed, but brain trauma acquired through domestic violence wasn’t.
Paper - Survivor feminism: Grace Tame's rhetoric of resistance, solidarity and transformation
By Christine Robertson
Masters of Arts (Writing) Research Project
University of New England
Paper Trail - A poem
Paper Trail
She is nothing,
but she has a point of view.
She is young,
but she rummages through
the tissues in her bra,
she’s no star.
She has no pockets
for ritzy spent dockets;
she is just nothing,
but she has a point of view.
He’s not the right image,
for you, true blue.
You’re tiptoeing around
with only one shoe.
He’s not the right image
for us too.
The female beast
is the one inside you.
Censoring self,
isn’t your due.
There’s blue paint
on the ceiling,
as a short-film mart.
Plastered on the wall
peeling off your heart,
is just the start.
The hostage burns slow
when the light gets too low.
Self-sabotage protects the other,
self-delete inserts another.
Anon.
Domestic violence victim-survivors share early warning signs of abuse
By Kellie Scott
Posted to ABC News, 01/07/25 – 1:00pm
Told they couldn’t go out with friends. Stopped from giving male friends a hug. Called crazy and gaslit when their partner did something wrong.
These are just some of the early signs of intimate partner violence shared by victim-survivors in recent research from the University of Melbourne.
Join our program for women who have been in prison
Do you have experience of family or sexual violence AND incarceration?
Do you want to use you voice to make a difference or other women?
We are holding an online information session on 7th August, 2025. Click below for further information.