Maaike Moller^1
1Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine

Sexual violence is linked to war, both as a tactic or weapon or as a driver of underlying sexual violence risks.  Sexual violence can constitute any of the core international crimes of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.  The tribunals of the late twentieth century established jurisprudence in the conviction of sexual crimes.  The international criminal court (ICC) was established to prosecute those most responsible for the worst crimes in accordance with principles of complementarity.  

This presentation will review how the ICC has sought to prosecute sexual violence and the role of clinical forensic medicine in this.  It will also outline the collaborations of the ICC with civil society organisations such as Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) in order to do so.

The presentation will draw on the speaker’s experience as a pro-bono consultant for the ICC and PHR.

Janine Rowse^1,2, Liyasha Goonetilleke, Richard Bassed^1,2  

¹Monash University Department of Forensic Medicine; ²Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine

In a time of unprecedented information sharing, it is crucial to capture contemporaneous emerging and evolving trends in sexual assault, to better inform clinical forensic medicine practitioners as well as societal preventive efforts. 

Findings from a four-year statewide dataset of over 1500 adult sexual assault forensic medical examinations are presented, including: technology facilitated sexual assault features, sexual assault in the workplace, stealthing related allegations, features of sexual assault in the masseuse setting, sexual assault of pregnant complainants, strangulation symptomatology and examination findings, as well as emerging possible features of extreme sexual violence of forensic significance (oral penetrative choking and hair dragging). 

The medical diagnosis of inflicted head trauma (IHT) needs to be made with great care and consideration. It is not uncommon for caregivers to provide a history of a short fall to explain inflicted head injuries. There is an overlap between the spectrum of intracranial and eye findings seen in accidental and inflicted head injury, particularly when occipital impact is involved and understanding of this is increasing. This talk will use a clinical case to highlight the forensic importance of occipital impact in paediatric head injury, discuss the clinical findings and biomechanics, and provide an overview of the recent literature. 

¹Victorian Forensic Paediatric Medical Service, Royal Children’s and Monash Children’s Hospitals, Melbourne, Australia.