‘Sunday Night’ Reveals Stunning Figures Of Sexual Abuse At Australian Unis

Thanks to the continual efforts of abuse survivors – and a handful of highly-publicised cases –  the culture of sexual assault on university campuses is finally gaining mainstream attention, along with the maddeningly lax institutional responses to those abuses.

Sunday Night’s latest investigation into the issue has revealed that across universities nationwide, a staggering 575 cases of sexual assault, harassment and indecent behaviour have been reported in the past five years – with only six reports leading to student expulsions.
Survivors of sexual violence told their stories on the program, and each revealed facets of Australia’s university culture that accompany an apparent lack of decisive university action against perpetrators of sexual violence.
Jannika Jacky didn’t go to the police after her rape on campus, partly due to a fear she wouldn’t even be believed. (While she did eventually inform the police and her abuser didn’t return to the residential college, he kept his enrollment and graduated this month.)
Similarly, Emma Hunt was raped at a university party, but was only convinced to report it to the university by a friend. Her reason for not reporting it immediately was that the university’s “services didn’t seem to be obvious and available to me,” and it was “hard to find the avenues” of support. Her case was reported to the police months after her assault.
Sharna Bremner, founder of End Rape On Campus, said support systems “are difficult for someone to navigate who hasn’t suffered any trauma,” but “when you’ve got trauma on top of that it basically becomes impossible.” 
She also described the horrible Catch-22 where “you report to the police, or the university can help you, but once you’ve reported to the police, the university can’t help you.”
Of course, it’s not solely an institutional problem. The program spoke to Dr Roslyn Arnold in an attempt to understand what kind of culture could foster such toxic conditions in the first place. 
When asked if the so-called “rape culture” exists, Dr Arnold said “I don’t want to believe it any more than anyone else does, but yes it does exist. And it’s terrifying.”

Regarding the abuses perpetrated on young women, Dr Arnold says an environment where “it’s acceptable to denigrate them, humiliate them, to act violently towards them” has served as a terrifying catalyst.

The program touched on many of the interrelated issues that contribute to this horrific set of circumstances, but could have said so much more about the culture that nurtures this kind of violence, the institutional quagmire survivors need to deal with, and tertiary education’s seemingly lenient response to abusers. 
Perhaps they’ll return to it in the coming months – the program ended with a reference to a survey being conducted by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which has been issued on a targeted basis to university students in Australia. Concurrently, if you are interested in submitting your own experiences, the AHRC is also running a separate submissions process (which is available right here), the results of which will surely be worthy of investigation.

Sexual harassment or violence is not acceptable. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual harassment or assault, you can talk to the friendly people at 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 – it’s never your fault, and there are safe ways to speak out or talk to someone.

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