Introduction

The starting point for this book is a series of gang rapes that provoked widespread public debate in both Australia and France in the early 2000s. On 29 July 2001 the headlines ‘70 Girls Attacked by Rape Gangs’, ‘Police warning on new race crime’ and ‘Caucasian women the targets’ appeared on the front page of the Melbournebased tabloid the Sun-Herald with details of rapes that had been committed approximately a year before in Sydney (hereafter referred to as the ‘Sydney gang rapes’). What followed were a series of highly publicised criminal trials, intense media coverage and commentary, political debate, and law reform.