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Australian Lawyers Alliance called for stronger regulations around conversion practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.
In response to the Health Complaints Commissioner Inquiry into Conversion Therapy, the alliance (ALA) said the practices have been found to cause serious psychological harm and should be regulated by a combination of criminal and civil law.
“The law should be used to protect children and anybody with mental illness, cognitive impairment or intellectual disability from being subjected to these odious practices.”
Conversion therapy has been discredited as dangerous by mainstream mental health and medical organisations for decades, according to the Human Rights Campaign. It is, however, still conducted due to discrimination and societal bias of LGBT+ people.
In the past, conversion practices included institutionalisation, electroconvulsive shock therapy and castration. Today, while the techniques still include physical measures, it also includes behavioural, psychoanalytical and cognitive practices.
Mr King said a criminal offence should be created to prevent parents or guardians from removing a person from Australia for “forced or coerced” conversion therapies and to give power to a body to respond to situations where there is physical harm.
“In many cases it would be difficult to prove criminal activity,” Mr King said. “So in most situations, civil penalties are more appropriate to respond to the harm.”
Conversion practices are not explicitly stated as prohibited under Australian legislation but there are existing laws and regulations governing registered medical professionals and healthcare services that provide some form of protection.
Earlier this month, the ACT government introduced new legislation to ban the practice of conversion therapy by 2020. ACT Labor leader Andrew Barr, the nation’s first openly gay head of government, tweeted the practice was “harmful and outdated”.
“LGBT Canberrans are not sick or unnatural,” Mr Barr tweeted. “We do not need to be ‘changed’, ‘cured’, ‘healed’, or whatever term is used by the practitioners in harmful and outdated conversion therapy. It’s time to put an end to this.”
Mr King said survivors should be able to recover damages from providers of services to “compensate for the pain and suffering or psychological harm” from the practices.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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