Faculty Award of Excellence: Law
Growing up in Blacktown and witnessing discrimination towards the Indigenous population gave Catherine Hinwood a strong sense of social justice from a young age. Now living overseas, Ms Hinwood is one of the UK’s leading advocates for domestic abuse and sexual violence reform, having received an OBE in recognition of her work in this year’s King’s Honours List.
Ms Hinwood’s journey started with studying a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law at UTS, where she was encouraged to think about advocacy and how she could inspire change. At UTS she learned to dig deep into issues and question whether things could be done differently – a mindset that has stayed with her throughout her career.
Her career path has taken her from the Human Rights Commission in Australia, to representing asylum seekers and refugees in court in London, to working in government policy for supporting victims of crime. She started specialising in gender equality as a gender champion for the Ministry of Justice, where she led the thinking around gender equality for 80,000 employees. That work included creating the first sexual harassment policies for the public sector in the UK.
Ms Hinwood is dedicated to leaving a legacy through her work within the public sector, listening to those who have experienced sexual harassment and taking action to prevent it happening to others.
Currently, Ms Hinwood works for the National Health Service (NHS), creating policies that aim to prevent sexual harassment and sexual violence for employees and patients across multiple health networks and organisations. In addition to her work with the NHS, Ms Hinwood also led the UK government response in relation to COVID for victims of crime – particularly victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence.
One of Ms Hinwood’s proudest achievements was getting extra funding for domestic violence support services during COVID lockdowns and ensuring victim support helpline information was displayed during televised COVID briefings.
Prevention of domestic and sexual violence is something Ms Hinwood is working strongly towards, as she advocates to shift the conversation towards domestic abuse and sexual violence being viewed as a public health issue. She believes the law is an incredibly important tool for social justice and change that can be used to tackle some of society’s biggest issues.
I would like to see a complete societal shift in relation to domestic abuse and sexual violence. I believe we can change societal attitudes towards misogyny and sexual violence in the same way we’ve shifted attitudes toward drink driving or wearing a seatbelt.