Sexual harassment and violence at university: share your experiences
|
Version 0 of 1. Sexual consent workshops are now mandatory at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, and voluntary workshops are taking place across other campuses around the country. But how much do these initiatives help in tackling sexual harassment and violence on campus, and are universities doing enough? One in seven female students said they had been seriously sexually or physically assaulted, according to a survey by the National Union of Students. An online survey conducted in 2013 found that a third of female students had experience of either a sexual assault or unwanted advances at university. As a Guardian film exploring the sexist element of “lad culture” at universities launched on Monday, the Sex Education Forum (SEF) said progress could only be made if people were educated earlier on. Despite government guidance that secondary schools should cover consent in sex relationship education, 40% of 19- to 25-year-olds rated their sex and relationship education at school as “bad or very bad”, according to the SEF. A Guardian investigation in May, which focused on Russell Group universities, found fewer than half of them were monitoring the extent of sexual violence against students, while one in six said they did not have specific guidelines on how students could report allegations to the institution or to police. Given these findings, it’s important to ask whether sexual consent is being talked about loudly or frequently enough. What is your university doing around the issue of sexual consent? Do you think its approach to sexual violence and harassment is strong enough? Share your experiences using the form below and we’ll use a selection of responses in our reporting. |