Sexual Violence, Medicine, and Psychiatry: An International, Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Relationship Between Medicine, Psychiatry, and Sexual Violence
16-17 April 2020, University of Newcastle, Australia
Confirmed Speakers: Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck, University of London; Steven Angelides, La Trobe University; Sameena Mulla, Marquette University; and Andrea Quinlan, University of Toronto.
This symposium will explore the role of medical professionals in debates about sexual violence. Police doctors and forensic medical examiners, GPs, gynaecologists, surgeons, nurses, midwives, prison surgeons, psychiatrists, and therapists working in all forms of institutional and community settings have been influential agents in the interpretation, medicalisation, and adjudication of sexual attacks. This is an important time to investigate the relationship between medical professionals and sexual violence. Scandals around medical and psychiatric responses to sexual abuse emerge on a regular basis (viz. Nauru detention camp; the abuse of people in psychiatric wards, prison, and detention camps; failures to send the biological samples from ‘rape kits’ for forensic examination; complaints about medical examinations; popular anxieties about the medical treatment and rehabilitation of violent offenders). The symposium seeks to promote human health through providing insights into the role of medicine and psychiatry in understanding sexual violence.
Proposals due 25 November 2019.