Lived Experience Identifies “Glaring Gap” In Legal Protections for Survivors of Sexual Assault

Henry Broadbent (he/him)

CW: Sexual Violence, Seconday Trauma, Cops

In March 2024 Ali Cook, then 19, was sexually assaulted by overseas officials, members of a delegation representing a Vietnamese policing agency: the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security. By the time police in New Zealand had established their identities, the men had left the country. New Zealand and Vietnam do not have a bilateral extradition treaty.

In the ~18 months since, Cook has chosen to go public with her experience, in an effort to obtain extradition, and justice. You can read her story, in her words, on page 18, under the title: Tough on Crime, Except When It's Me. 

Much of the reporting on Cook’s story has focused on the question of obtaining justice in the absence of an extradition treaty. On October 2, Stuff reported that the New Zealand Police would not pursue extradition, deeming it “impossible.” 

This is despite precedent: the extradition of a Malaysian ex-diplomat in 2014 to face charges of indecent assault in New Zealand—the same charge the men in Cook’s case face. New Zealand and Malaysia also do not have an extradition treaty. In March 2025, the New Zealand Police and the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security signed an agreement to cooperate on “transnational crime”. 

There is another, less headline-grabbing element of Cook’s experience that has led her to seek Parlimentary support: the absence of readily available, publicly funded, non means-tested legal advice for survivors of sexual assault.

Sexual assault survivors in New Zealand have for years reported interactions with an opaque, procedurally complex, and frequently retraumatising justice system. 2021 saw the unanimous passage through Parliament of the Sexual Violence Legislation Act, a significant law reform that altered key elements of the court process identified as likely to retraumatise survivors. 

Changes included: enshrining alternate methods of providing evidence; ensuring survivors previous sexual history with defendants is largely off-limits, and; establishing a requirement for judges to actively dispel myths and misconceptions surrounding sexual violence within the jury. Access to privacy, and protection from excessive cross-examination, are also included in the Bill.

This legislation has broadly been seen as a significant improvement, but must be recognised as merely an initial step. Marama Davidson, in a 2021 press release for the Green Party, described the Bill as: “a bare minimum.” 

In a New Zealand court setting, sexual assault survivors occupy the position of witness, and will be caled upon for evidence and an impact statement; prosecution itself is taken by the Crown. Alleged offenders—people accused of sexual violence—are defendants. This means that those accused of sexual offences in New Zealand will, in almost all cases, have access to legal aid and representation in court. Crown prosecutors have the resources of the state. A survivor, by contrast, must navigate the court system without advocacy, representing themselves—unless they can afford to pay for a private lawyer. 

To Cook, this represents a glaring omission in our court process for survivors, and a gap that must be closed. This has driven her to produce a policy brief, titled The Case for Independent Legal Advice (ILA) for all Survivors of Sexual Violence, in the hope that it can find a sponsor in Parliament and become a Members Bill, addressing what she sees as an urgently lacking element of our legislation. 

The implementation of free, independent legal advice for survivors of sexual violence, Cook notes, has been successfully trialed and implemented in comparable jurisdictions. Programmes are already in place in parts of Australia, Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Each of these states has the same common-law basis to their justice system; the successes of these programmes elsewhere makes the absence of any similar initiative in New Zealand particularly conspicuous.

The need for such measures is undeniably acute; sexual violence rates in New Zealand are staggering. A study published in The Lancet in May compared rates of sexual violence in over 200 countries across the last thirty years. Though it holds a specific focus—sexual violence experienced when people are teenagers—the study found that, in New Zealand, ~30% of women and ~20% of men have experienced sexual violence. Globally, those figures are 18.9% and 14.8%, respectively. 

Combine that data with what we know about the rate of attrition in sexual assault cases in New Zealand courts (by some estimates only 1% of cases reach conviction), the epidemic of underreporting, and vast existing legal barriers; a stark picture begins to emerge. 

A June 2025 Report from the New Zealand Law Society identifies significant barriers to accessing justice in New Zealand, and a widespread perception that “in reality, not everyone is equal before the law because not everyone has equal access to the law.” A legal system is difficult to access and difficult to understand is one that is definitionally unequal. For Cook, addressing this problem seems easy, even obvious. To her, it is less a pioneering effort to make change than something long overdue. 

“No survivor of sexual violence should be forced into exhausting self-advocacy just to be heard. Independent legal advice would have spared me that burden. Survivors deserve a system of redress that is simple, accessible, and fair—and it’s time to make that a reality.”