Wangaratta's Centre Against Violence welcomes new affirmative consent laws

The Victorian laws came into effect at the weekend and require all involved in sexual activity to seek and receive consent freely and voluntarily.

The Centre Against Violence chief executive Jaime Chubb said the legal system needed significant reform to support the changes.

Ms Chubb said the blueprint the Victorian Law Reform Commission provided could guide the reforms, helping ensure a more "compassionate and efficient response to sexual offences".

"The new affirmative consent model would require individuals to take active steps to ensure consent from all parties involved in a sexual activity," she said.

"Moreover, there will be new circumstances where consent cannot be given, including situations involving force, coercion, intimidation, abuse of trust, false representations and intentional non-use of protection."

Ms Chubb said the government had also made changes to image-based sexual abuse laws.

"The definition of an intimate image now includes digitally created images like deep-fake pornography and harsher penalties have been established for sharing such images without consent."

Ms Chubb said the evidence spoke for itself, "highlighting the urgency of implementing affirmative consent laws and comprehensive reforms to combat sexual violence effectively".

"Shocking statistics show that only a small percentage of incidents are reported, leading to even fewer cases reaching the prosecution stage," she said.

Fewer than 10 per cent of sexual assault victims report to police, with only a quarter of police reports leading to charges.

A further 10 per cent of cases end at the prosecution stage, which means only a small number of sexual offences proceed to trial.

Victoria Sexual Assault Services chief executive Kathleen Maltzahn said the new laws could "be a game changer".

"But how will they work if survivors still hit the same broken legal system?" she said.

"The Victorian Law Reform Commission has given us a blueprint for fixing responses to sexual offences, and bringing in affirmative consent is an important first step, but unless the government backs in these changes with reform of the legal system, the new laws risk failing."

Some of the options she said would help further raise awareness would be better education and training for legal professionals and the broader community, independent advocates for victim-survivors from the moment they reported sexual violence and adequate funding for specialist sexual assault services.

Ms Chubb said there were concerns surrounding sexual violence, especially among young Australians.

"(It) underlines the importance of community education and awareness," she said.

Ms Chubb said it was an excellent step to tackling sexual assault and promoting a culture of consent and respect.

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