There is a deeply entrenched gender bias that permeates health and welfare systems around women who use drugs, especially when it comes to parenting capacity. While Australian health and social service guidelines state that a woman’s drug use should not be conflated with poor or dangerous parenting, the use of drugs is commonly used a reason to monitor women and/or to remove children. 

To date, there is no in-depth study on the socio-legal experiences of women who use drugs in Australia, or how laws and guidelines are enacted in relation to this population. Building on our work in an innovative UK-based study covering the same topic, this proposal aims to build a new team of Australian researchers to develop a funding application to explore this urgent and under-researched issue.