09/06/2026
Great to see a national discourse on Strangulation - we’ve been following along and inputting - here’s a summary of The Red Rose Foundation Position on Strangulation:
The Red Rose Foundation’s position is unequivocal: there is no safe way to strangle.
Strangulation is inherently dangerous and potentially lethal. It can cause serious and lasting physical and neurological harm, often in the absence of visible external injury. In the context of domestic and family violence, it is also a significant precursor to homicide and one of the strongest recognised indicators of escalating and potentially lethal violence.
For Red Rose, recognising and responding effectively to strangulation is fundamentally about homicide prevention. When a victim-survivor has experienced strangulation, the system has been given an important warning of heightened risk. That warning must trigger an informed, coordinated response across health, police, justice and specialist domestic and family violence services.
This has been central to Red Rose’s work for more than two decades. Our origins lie in the Domestic Violence Death Review Action Group, established in 2004 and through the leadership of Betty Taylor AM, who specifically campaigned for greater recognition of the lethal significance of strangulation and for a dedicated legislative response.
That sustained advocacy helped secure a landmark reform in 2016, when Queensland became the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce a standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation in a domestic violence context.
Red Rose Foundation founder Betty Taylor AM was subsequently acknowledged in the Queensland Parliament as one of the key advocates responsible for achieving that reform.
Queensland’s leadership was significant. It recognised that strangulation is not simply another form of assault: it is a distinctive form of violence, associated with coercion, control, serious harm and increased risk of future homicide. Every other Australian state and territory has followed Queensland”s lead and introduced strangulation offences.
Red Rose has continued to build on that reform through specialist victim-survivor support, research, professional education, systems advocacy and law reform. We established Australia’s first specialist Strangulation Trauma Centre and the Australian Institute for Strangulation Prevention, and have developed longstanding national and international partnerships to ensure Australian practice benefits from emerging evidence and expertise.
Our international partners Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention and Alliance for HOPE International describe Red Rose as providing “tremendous expertise and visionary leadership” and emphasise that addressing strangulation is, at its core, homicide prevention.
A decade after Queensland’s groundbreaking legislative reform, our focus must now be on ensuring that recognition translates into action: earlier identification, appropriate health assessment, informed risk assessment, strong justice responses, specialist support for victim-survivors, effective perpetrator accountability and consistent professional education.
At the same time, new challenges are emerging. The increasing normalisation of strangulation in sexual contexts risks obscuring the physiological danger of pressure to the neck and undermining decades of work to ensure strangulation is recognised as potentially lethal. The human body does not distinguish between the context in which oxygen or blood flow is restricted. Red Rose therefore maintains that public policy, law and professional practice must reinforce a simple and evidence-based message:
There is no safe way to strangle.
Recognising strangulation, responding appropriately and intervening early can provide an opportunity to Change the Ending before the next strangulation becomes the last. .
