Support services see a rise in women talking for the first time about sexual assaults, but news is distressing to many abuse survivors

Sexual assault support organisations and mental health workers say they are seeing more Australian women coming forward to tell their own stories of abuse, after weeks of public reporting on the issue.

Last month Brittany Higgins publicly raised allegations she was raped in the parliamentary office of Australia’s Defence Minister Linda Reynolds in 2019.

She was a staff member in Ms Reynolds’s office at the time and alleged she was…