Coordinator Robyn Forbes says the group, based at Kalangur in northern Brisbane, has received inquiries from across the country. She says the partners of accused men are often left in financial trouble.
"[They're] having to support themselves when their husbands are charged or when their husband leaves or when their husband suicides once he's been charged, so that is certainly an enormous issue for people," she said.
"Also the legal issues - a lot of the women have the perception that the courts are working against them, that their interests aren't properly protected in the justice system."
Ms Forbes believes the group is the only one of its kind in Australia. She says women usually do not confide in friends or family because of the nature of the offence.
"It's very isolating for the women," she said. "They just don't tell anybody and if they do happen to mention it to a family member or a close friend, often those people don't know what to say, it's out of their grasp.
"They end up just distancing themselves from the person and the woman is left very much isolated and alone."
By House Wife 20 October 04
In Other Developments:
Naming and Shaming
THE SUNDAY TABLOID, the News of the World, under its new editor, Rebecca Wade, has set itself up as the protector of children. For two weeks it ran pictures of known paedophiles and threatened to continue to do so until every single one had been named. (This would, apparently, have taken something like thirty years).
The paper was forced to abandon its campaign when just about every organisation involved in child protection criticised its action.
The paedophile register is working well, they said. Naming and shaming child abusers would simply drive them underground, making it more difficult to protect children, not less.
Stuart Kuttner of the News of the World has tried, absurdly, to portray the campaign as a success. So what has it achieved?
Mob rule. Hysteria. Four completely innocent families have been driven out of their homes in Portsmouth. At least two other innocent people have had their homes firebombed by mobs who mistook them for people named in the News of the World. A man innocently talking to some children in Berkshire was set upon. A man with a record of child abuse has committed suicide.
Related:
Dr Louise Porter on protecting children
"When I say that rewards and punishments have limited success what I mean is at the most they can only ever teach children to do as they're told and I think that's a very dangerous thing to do for children.
Expert says child porn investigation tip of iceberg
A leading expert on child abuse says the current New South Wales police investigation into child pornography is just the tip of the iceberg.
Police offer protection to family following gang rape allegations
The parents of a 14-year-old girl claim their daughter was gang-raped in Sydney earlier this year, and have raised concerns about corrupt policeman Detective Sergeant Christopher Laycock's review of the case.
NSW police prosecutor charged with child porn possession
A New South Wales police prosecutor has been charged with the possession of child pornography. Police spokesman Sergeant Dave Rose says that in mid-August officers were called to an Internet cafe in the Sydney central business district after a man was alleged to have downloaded child pornography.
Rockspiders: Police, Teachers, Childcare Owners, and Uncle Pervy!
Police have indicated there will be hundreds more arrests as part of Australia's largest ever crackdown on child pornography even though it is some of the police themselves? Authorities have so far charged more than 190 people with a total of 2000 offences and seized more than two million pornographic images.
Police, teachers charged in child porn bust
One-hundred-and-fifty people, including police officers and teachers, have been arrested in what the Federal Police (AFP) describe as Australia's biggest Internet child pornography bust.
Child sex offenders to be monitored in NSW
New South Wales Police Minister John Watkins says convicted child sex offenders in south-western Sydney will be monitored during a six-month trial.
NSW: Rapists more criminally versatile than Paedophiles
Parents to be given paedophile details? But rapists are more criminally versatile than Paedophiles! So who let the dogs out? Police Minister John Watkins! That's who.
NSW Prisons Inmate Development Committee speaks out
I am writing on behalf of the IDC Inmate Development Committee in area 3, MSPC at Long Bay. Area 3 is where, the Department is congregating minimum-security offenders within maximum-security walls whilst awaiting mandatory programs at Cubit (Sex Offenders Program).
Vic database to track sex offenders' movements
The Sex Offenders Registration Bill is due to be tabled in Parliament later this week. Sex offenders will have to tell police if they change their names, address or work and will not be allowed to work with children.
Today Sex offenders TOMMORROW YOU!
To suggest there is a need to restrict their movement is rubbish! This is a grab for civil liberties in NSW and it offends everyone else who is free to associate because soon it could be you who is restricted or someone you know.
Gang-rape, police, disparity and the law..
The young woman and her friend have told police they met the players in Coffs Harbour on the evening after the Bulldogs played a trial match there and went back to the team's hotel with them.
Govt stands by child sex offender program
The Western Australian Government is standing by a taxpayer-funded agency that offers conditional confidentiality to child sex offenders.
Therapy key for teen sex offenders
US: One girl allegedly was raped in the boys' bathroom at Folsom High School on a warm midday in March. Another told officials the same boy, a freshman at the school, had tried to rape her days earlier in a girls' bathroom. Two other girls told investigators the boy had committed lesser sex crimes against them at school within the previous week. If true, such a pattern of escalation is worrisome, according to experts who study and treat sex offenders.
Sexual Abuse: Testimony
I'm Debbie Ingraham, and I'm an activist for Restorative Justice. I'm also a former litigant who filed an unsuccessful civil suit against a family member for incest, and a former victim advocate. I bring a 30 year personal perspective of "real life" experiences that come from living with the effects of sexual abuse.
