Photo: Gráinne Loughran. From the UCD Students’ Union’s ‘Slutwalk’.
Eithne Dodd looks at the current trend of sexual consent campaigns across third level institutions.
Third level institutions all over the country have recently intensified their efforts on the issues of sexual consent awareness. In January, the Students’ Union of Trinity College Dublin unanimously passed a motion mandating the organisation of compulsory sexual education workshops to begin this September. These classes will be mandatory for nearly 1000 first-year undergraduate students who live in Trinity accommodation.
After the findings of a survey carried out by TCDSU, Trinity has become increasingly aware of the need for sexual consent campaigns. 1,038 students responded to the Union’s survey, which found some unsettling figures. Slightly less than a third of female respondents to the survey said they had experienced unwanted physical contact while at Trinity. 25.2 per cent of females and 4.5 per cent of male respondents said that they had had a non-consensual sexual experience. 42 per cent of the women surveyed reported experiencing verbal harassment. And yet less than a third of those surveyed had any knowledge of consent campaigns.
Trinity is not the only institution to have reacted to news of sexual abuse on campus. On the 2nd of February the Union of Students Ireland (USI) launched its “Say Something” Campaign in response to survey results completed by over 2,700 students. Their survey found that 11 per cent of female respondents said they had been subject to unwanted sexual contact and, in addition, 8 per cent of women said they were victims of rape or attempted rape. In response to these figures Kevin Donoghue, President of USI said: “We hope that these statistics will shed new light on the area of violence, including physical and sexual harassment.”
Educational institutions appear to desperately need to change their approach to sexual consent issues. Of those who partook in the USI survey, 16 per cent of students reported having received some form of unwanted sexual experience while at their current educational institution. A large proportion of victims did not report incidents of assault. Of those who did not report abuse, 29 per cent were ashamed or embarrassed of what had happened. 22 per cent worried they would be blamed and 21 per cent did not want their family to find out.
The two most common reasons given as to why incidents of unwanted sexual experience were not reported to the Gardaí were that they didn’t believe the incident was serious enough to report or that they didn’t believe what had happened was a crime.
The announcement of sexual consent classes in Trinity has been met with praise from a variety of organisations. Not only is UCD due to follow suit, but Donoghue of USI said: “We want to open up dialogue and provide students with the language and information that is needed in relation to sexual consent… initiatives such as the proposed consent workshops in Trinity College Dublin are very important in empowering young people and changing attitudes about what is and is not appropriate behaviour for all students.”
Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, CEO of The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre echoes this sentiment. “We hope they get the support they need from both the college authorities and from the students themselves. The recent conversations about sexual consent and the need for on-going age-related programmes from early childhood to third level institutions are very welcome.”
In the last week, the attention has turned from Trinity to UCD in the wake of allegations of the existence of a ‘revenge porn’ group in UCD by the College Tribune. They alleged that 200 agricultural science students were partaking in a Facebook group in which explicit photographs of women were shared and commented on. Although an investigation conducted by UCD found these allegations to be unsubstantiated, they have incited UCD into action regarding sexual consent. UCD Students’ Union has promised to change people’s perspectives on sexual consent. In a statement made on UCDSU’s Facebook page recently, they said: “We’re not going to pass the buck. We will change ‘lad’ culture in UCD as promised following our election to office.”
In this same statement the SU promises to change UCD’s policy in a number of areas. They have promised the introduction of mandatory sexual consent workshops as well as increased funding for UCD Counselling Service and a comprehensive survey of UCD student experience in relation to sexual violence.
“If anything, it’s made us more focused than ever to make sure it goes ahead. It’s by far the most important thing we’ll do this year.”
President of the Students’ Union, Marcus O’Halloran met with UCD President Andrew Deeks to discuss the UCD consent campaign. “The President, he was very aware of what the campaign was about,” says O’Halloran. “I put a proposal to him that we should follow suit, basically said to him that Trinity have gone down the route of introducing mandatory consent classes for people that live on res in Trinity.” O’Halloran added that President Deeks was very supportive of this idea.
Before the consent classes begin, the SU will carry out a survey of UCD students on their experiences of sexual violence. “The procedure we’re trying to go about is that we can show the results to the University and show there is a genuine need for this to take place,” O’Halloran says. “The plan always was to have the results first before the classes.”
“I think a lot of people have attitudes towards consent that they don’t realise they have,” says Hazel Beattie, Students’ Union Graduate Officer and Vice President. “These classes might make them more aware of those attitudes and change their understanding of what consent actually is, and help them to practice consent, and to get the conversation going amongst the student body.”
“The whole disclosure of the UCD 200, it was disappointing from our end because we received the criticism from everybody,” O’Halloran says. “Up until then, we had been extremely proactive on the issue, and now it makes us look like we’re being reactive… it’s just a pity that this had to happen and that we hadn’t it announced.”
UCDSU has said that university-led sexual consent classes will begin by September 2016. It is hoped that these classes will help end ‘lad culture’ and increase student awareness of consent. With the attention that is currently on UCD after the false allegations surrounding UCD 200, O’Halloran adds: “If anything, it’s made us more focused than ever to make sure it goes ahead. It’s by far the most important thing we’ll do this year.”
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