We must do better, Simon Harris vows as third of Irish female students admit they’ve experienced sexual assault
MORE than 45 per cent of students in Ireland have been inappropriately touched in a sexual way while incapacitated, shocking new data reveals.
This week, the Irish Sun and our sister radio stations, FM104, Q102, LMFM and more, have launched our Call This Out campaign.
It aims to get people talking about the culture that allows misogyny in this country- from comments, jokes, inappropriate behaviour right up to violence against women.
It comes in the wake of the death of Ashling Murphy, but it has long been a problem.
The names Nadine Lott, Raonaid Murray, Sonia Blount and Irene White are all etched into our memories as women who died at the hands of violence.
But these shocking statistics show that this abuse is happening in our colleges, where our daughters, sisters, friends all attend.
A survey carried out by the Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris last year has just been released.
It found that 34.2 per cent of female students surveyed, (over 1,100 students) experienced non-consensual vaginal penetration through coercion, incapacitation, force, or threat of force.
Some 14 per cent of students said someone had oral sex with them while they were incapacitated and unable to give consent, while seven per cent said this had happened when they were physically forced to do so.
Here Minister Harris discusses the survey and why it is time to call misogyny out.
By Simon Harris, Minister for Further and Higher Education
Across the country there are really important conversations taking place across kitchen tables about violence, in particular against women.
Today’s survey results highlight the challenges facing us and the difficulties we face in responding to them.
Last year, for the first time we asked every student and staff member in higher education to tell us about their experiences of sexual violence, harassment in colleges and whether interventions we had been making in our sector were working.
The findings are stark. They are deeply upsetting and they demand a response from those of us in positions of power.
More than 30 per cent of the students who answered said someone had sexually touched them when they were incapacitated and a further 15 per cent said this had happened through force.
Another 14 per cent of the respondents said someone had oral sex with them while they were incapacitated and unable to give consent, while 7 per cent said this had happened when they were physically forced to do so.
It will come as no surprise that women were more likely to experience sexual violence than men.
But the results of the survey should still shock us.
If they don’t, if we have somehow become numbed into accepting a violent undercurrent of misogyny in our society, then we should be deeply worried.
As a man, as a father, and as a politician, I know I am sickened by the findings.
We must do better.
We must strive to create a society where women feel safe, respected and equal.
We must continue the conversation, and we must turn talk into direct action.
Last year I asked each of our Higher Education Institutions to deliver specific plans to tackle sexual violence and harassment among students and staff.
Awareness raising, training classes and victim supports are being made widely available in colleges across Ireland. But of course, we must do more.
My Department has also been working with colleagues in the Department of Justice on the Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Violence – a Government strategy based on a zero-tolerance approach to tackling these issues.
We have an enviable third-level system in this country, one that is constantly improving, and one that is producing students who can compete with the best in the world.
We know our young people are socially aware and inspired to make a better world.
They rightly keep those of us in power on our toes, demanding that we work tirelessly to drive equality across society.
We should not, we must not, sugar-coat the findings.
Too many women feel unsafe in Ireland, too many feel belittled and disrespected. Too many women are sexually harassed and abused by men.
These are the facts, and it’s simply not good enough.
As Minister for Further and Higher Education, I will work to make to ensure every college student takes classes and is educated about consent and when to act.
But we all know that this a societal problem.
The overwhelming majority of men are rightly outraged by how their wives, daughters and mothers are treated.
Unfortunately there are those whose misogyny is so deep-rooted that compassion and reason will never reach them.
So we must continue the conversation.
As is happening with climate change, the discussion will become so common that a new generation should emerge for whom treating everyone with respect and empathy is second nature.
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This must be the aim.
We should not settle for anything less.