Woroni VOL. 67, Issue 8. Week 3, Semester 2, 2017
‘WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FEEL UNSAFE ON OUR CAMPUS’ ANU APOLOGISES TO SURVIVORS AFTER SURVEY RELEASE CONTENT WARNING SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, QUEERPHOBIA, AHRC SURVEY ‘We should not have to feel unsafe on our campus.’ Those were the anonymised words from one of 1,849 submissions to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s University Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment project. They echo the sentiments of students across Australia, after the ‘Change the Course’ report was released last week, showing 51 per cent of Australian university students were sexually harassed on at least one occasion in 2016. The results, from the survey conducted at 39 universities, show that women were almost twice as likely to be sexually harassed than men. The statistics were worse for individuals within minority sexualities and gender orientations: 44 per cent of bisexual students and 38 per cent of gay and lesbian students were sexually harassed in a university setting in 2016, compared with 23 per cent of students who identified as heterosexual.
Trans* and gender diverse students were more likely to have been sexually harassed (45 per cent) in a university setting in 2016 than women and men. Overall, 6.9 per cent of students were sexually assaulted on at least one occasion in 2015 or 2016, with 1.6 per cent reporting that the sexual assault occurred in a university setting. Women (10 per cent) were more than three times as likely as men (2.9 per cent) to have been sexually assaulted in 2015 or 2016. In 2016, 116 ANU students were sexually assaulted. More than half of the perpetrators of these sexual assaults were students from the same university that the victim attended. 71 per cent of perpetrators for sexual harassment were male and 83 per cent of sexual assaults were committed by men. Only nine per cent of individuals who were sexually assaulted reported their incident to the authorities, and only around one third of students who witnessed a sexual assault reported it. The Sex Discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, said that these results show ‘universities must do more to publicise their reporting processes’, noting that even when students reported their assaults, they were met with inconsistent and poor reactions.
The commissioner said that ‘one woman was asked about her drinking habits’, and a supervisor told another woman to ‘take it as a compliment’. The ANU has accepted the AHRC’s nine recommendations. The University has also accepted the ‘majority’ of the 15 recommendations made by ANUSA and PARSA. The vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, said he wanted ‘to start by saying sorry.’ ‘I also want to say sorry to any student, to any staff member, to any member of our alumni community who has not received what they needed from the University in dealing with sexual harassment or sexual assault,’ Schmidt said. ‘The University will work with our students through the new Steering Committee on the other proposals they have made, including exploring a restorative justice process for the University.’ This came after the AHRC survey found 38 per cent of ANU students were sexually harassed at university in 2016. The survey found that 10 per cent of ANU students were sexually harassed in a university residence. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4