This month, a woman bravely testified in court she was subjected to a “degrading and humiliating experience akin to sexual assault” at the hands of New South Wales Police. The young woman was forced to remove her tampon in front of officers during a strip search, which police later admitted was unlawful.
This experience was heard in the Supreme Court as part of a class action lawsuit that includes 3,000 alleged victims. It’s alleging police unlawfully strip-searched thousands of people at music festivals between 2016 and 2022.
These searches – which disproportionately increased against young girls and women – speak to a underlying issue within policing. Police scholars have long observed an internal culture of misogyny and sexism, both domestically and internationally.
