11 September 2026

Women’s Legal Services Australia releases evaluation of Temporary Visa Holders Experiencing Violence Pilot.

Specialist wraparound legal services, where lawyers, social workers and financial counsellors
work together to resolve interconnected family violence, family law, immigration and safety
issues, are highly innovative and best practice, an independent evaluation has found.

Research indicates that one in three refugee and migrant women in Australia has experienced
domestic and family violence. For women on temporary visas, that figure rises to 40 per cent.
And for many, the legal system is yet another barrier to safety.

Today, Women’s Legal Services Australia (WLSA) released the findings of an independent
evaluation of the Temporary Visa Holders Experiencing Violence Pilot – a government-funded
program delivered by seven Women’s Legal Services across Australia. The Pilot supported
more than 2,500 women to navigate the complex intersections of migration law, family law and
domestic and family violence systems.

The evaluation, conducted by researchers from Macquarie University and Western Sydney
University, found the trauma-informed ‘one stop shop’ model that centres women’s safety,
autonomy and support was key to its success.

Women who accessed the legal services reported transformed lives: safety secured, visa
certainty, children protected, housing accessed, and for the first time, a sense of agency over
their own futures.

However, the evaluation also found the Pilot was chronically underfunded and sustained
through the goodwill of a handful of exhausted staff, supplementary funding and services
absorbing costs that should never have fallen to them. Funding needs to recognise the
prolonged nature of migration processes, the legal complexity that women on temporary visas
face and the systemic barriers to safety, such as limited access income support, safe housing,
Medicare and employment.

With funding for these programs absorbed into the National Access to Justice Partnership since
July 2025, services are still struggling to fill the gaps to safeguard the long-term sustainability of
the model.

“No person should feel like they can’t escape violence, can’t keep their children safe, because
of their visa status. Time and again, our services see women on temporary visas feeling trapped
and needing to navigate complex legal processes and government systems to keep them and
their children safe,” Women’s Legal Services Australia Executive Director Adrianne Walters
said.

“This pilot is a testament to what is possible through gender-specialist integrated service
models, with different professionals working alongside women to achieve the best possible
safety outcomes. But more funding is needed.”

The Second Action Plan is an opportunity to ensure more women can live free from violence
through both visa reform and access to specialist legal support,” said Walters.
Across seven Women’s Legal Services, the Pilot demonstrated what person-centred
wraparound assistance looks like in practice.

Instead of having to go to one organisation for migration, another for family violence and
parenting orders and another for help with safety and financial barriers, they can attend one
service and avoid repeating their trauma to new professionals again and again. Clients
described the experience as transformative – not just legally, but personally.

“Women reported that being believed, being heard, and being supported by one team through
the entire process gave them back something that had been taken from them: a sense of power
and control over their own lives,” said Vanessa Burn, Chair of WLSA’s Migration Law

Committee and Head of Practice (Migration Law) at Women’s Legal Centre ACT.

“That is what trauma-informed, holistic legal practice looks like. And the evidence is clear that it
works,” said Burn.

The evaluation makes a number of recommendations, including:

1. Adequate and sustainable long-term funding for integrated wraparound models of legal
   practice and the normalisation of this approach across the legal assistance sector;
2. Investment in workforce development, cultural competency and domestic and family
   violence knowledge across the legal sector; and
3. Establishment of a standalone family violence visa to address the dangerous gaps in
   Australia’s current visa framework that leave victim-survivors with no pathway to safety.

Many women on temporary visas face an impossible choice: remain in a violent relationship or
risk having to leave Australia, lose their children and face unemployment and homelessness.

“No woman should be forced to choose between safety or her visa, between leaving violence or
staying with her children,” Walters said.

“Existing visa categories were not designed with victim-survivors in mind. The Pilot proved that
specialist legal services can bridge that gap but law reform must follow.”

WLSA calls on the Australian Government, the Attorney-General’s Department and the
Department of Home Affairs to act on the evaluation fundings and commit to funding gender-
specialist services across Australia at a scale that matches the need.

Media contact: wlsamedia@womenslegal.org.au