Taskforce

Education Minister: Act to address rape at universities

Everyone deserves to learn in a safe environment. But right now, hundreds of university students are being sexually assaulted every week, and too many universities and residences are failing to adequately prevent or appropriately respond.

Advocates have spoken up time and time again about the need for better responses - so that university processes aren’t re-traumatising survivors, and the impacts of sexual violence don’t force students out of their education. Institutions need to be held accountable when they fail students on these issues.

Now there's a critical opportunity to secure change -- with a national review of the entire higher education system about to get underway.

A Panel of Experts has been tasked with recommending the changes needed to ensure Australia's higher education system meets the needs of the nation - and and into the future. It has 7 focus areas for review - ranging from innovation, to investment. And with such a broad remit - there's a real risk that sexual violence gets sidelined as an area for priority action. 

Can you add your name to the call for sexual violence to be treated as a priority in this review process?

 

More information (click to view) 

Since February 2018 Fair Agenda, End Rape on Campus Australia, National Union of Students and The Hunting Ground Australia Project have been jointly campaigning for an independent, expert-led taskforce with powers to investigate and hold universities and residences to account on sexual violence.

The latest National Student Safety Survey shows 4.5% of students sexually assaulted since they started uni; 53% knowing nothing or very little about how to report; and 43% knowing nothing or very little about where to seek support or assistance. That’s thousands of predominantly young women having their educations and the opportunities associated with that potentially derailed by the violence perpetrated against them, and further by the inadequate response by the institution that should be supporting them.

This national review has been given an incredibly broad remit, with 7 key areas - including: access to education; accountability on obligations to students; and the quality of our education sector – all areas that inadequate action on sexual violence impact on.

Those of us who care about student’s right to learn in a safe environment, and not to have their education derailed by students and staff using sexual violence, are going to have to work hard and smart to re-focus the spotlight on these issues. The first step is going to be building our people power, and the volume of the public’s call for action on this issue.

 

-Sources-

Australian Human Rights Commission, Change the Course: National Report on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at Australian Universities, 2017, p 49. The survey found 2.3% of women, 1.7% of trans and gender diverse students, and 0.7% of male students were sexually assaulted in a university setting in 2015 and/or 2016.

D for Disgrace, 60 Minutes, 4 March 2018. New students at St Mark's College subject to degrading, sexually abusive hazing, student tells 60 Minutes, The Advertiser, 5 March 2018.

SIGN THE PETITION

3,926 SIGNATURES

To the Federal Education Minister, 

All students deserve a safe environment in which to learn.

We urge you to address the scourge of sexual violence on university campuses by establishing an independent expert-led taskforce to track, assess and publicly report on university and residences’ measures to prevent, and improve responses to sexual violence.

Signed,

Fair Agenda will email petition signers from time to time with important updates

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Latest activity

Jackie , 4655  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:42:49 +1100
"This gross sexist behavior has no place in an advanced western country.whoops! Australia doesn’t actually fit that description. Judging by the shenanigans in parliament"
Adrian , 4802  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:41:47 +1100
Sallie , 7004  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:41:42 +1100
"Dear Minister,
It is outrageous that generally male groups get away with such heinous base bullying depraved behaviour. Where is the male hierarchy when its needed. There is NO excuse; these bottom feeders are accepted onto a Uni campus because they are literate, can think conceptually, do sums. So moronic doesn’t cut it…Rules have to be set in place as the moral compass is way off.
yours,
Sallie"
Ailsa , 4066  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:41:29 +1100
"People dismiss these actions as “just harmless rites of passage”. They are neither harmless nor an acceptable initiation into university life. They need to be called out for what they are – bullying – and outlawed!"
Beverley , 3146  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:40:48 +1100
Cecilia , 6076  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:39:57 +1100
"Those who perpetrate violence, abuse and intimidation against young people should be expelled from our universities. They cause people to be damaged psychologically and physically, perhaps for the rest of their lives. We must do everything in our power to ensure young people are as safe as possible as they study and live their lives in universities."
Bruce , 3174  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:39:05 +1100
"When I was an undergraduate, I lived in a male residential college for my first year and was sickened by the bragging of many men about their abuse of women."
Jan , 2650  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:39:00 +1100
"How can we still allow such attrocious ehaviour and degradation to occur."
Christine , 7120  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:38:57 +1100
Rosemary , 2016  /  signed 2018-02-22 15:38:17 +1100
"When I was a student at Sydney Uni there were so many rapes and assaults of students in colleges and the University consistently refused to take any responsibility and let the colleges continue to fail their students. Leaving it up to individual universities isn’t good enough – a taskforce will go a long way to addressing this"
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