WRNA Calls on Premier Allan to Stop Housing Men in Women’s Prisons

Women’s Rights Network Australia (WRNA) has written to Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, condemning the ongoing placement of male offenders in women’s prisons. The most recent case concerns a biological male—convicted of sexually abusing his own daughter—who has been transferred to the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

30 September 2025

The Hon Jacinta Allan,

Parliament of Victoria

Spring Street

East Melbourne VIC 3002

Dear Premier Allan

Forcing women in prison to be housed with male inmates is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.

We write as members of Women’s Rights Network Australia (WRNA) to express our profound concern regarding the recent placement of a male, convicted of sexually abusing his daughter, in the women’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

Housing males in female prisons disregards all reasonable community and safeguarding concerns.

It also ignores the pleas of female inmates who have petitioned for these harmful placements to end.

The Victorian Government’s lack of transparency means that the total number of men currently housed in women’s prisons, and the extent of the resulting harm, cannot be adequately tracked or reported. Yet the outcomes of this practice have been well documented internationally: sexual assault, physical violence, pregnancy, coercion, trauma, privacy violations, manipulation, disruption to rehabilitation, and the retraumatisation of those women who are already victims of male violence.

These extraordinary harms are also entirely avoidable – any concerns about safety or the vulnerability of particular prisoners within the male prison system, can and should be addressed within the male prison system.

We urge you to listen to the women you are entrusted to protect, and to act urgently to ensure their safety and dignity.

Yours sincerely,

Women’s Rights Network Australia Inc.