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Universities slammed for inadequate action on sexual violence

A female student was raped by a male student at a university party. Afterwards, she reported the matter to campus security.

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3 Comments

  1. I am beyond furious at these disgraceful incidence , and the way they were mishandled. It is the 21st Century and we must be better than this type of disgusting behaviour perpetrated by those in charge.
    We have a duty of care to our students, the least part of which should be about keeping them safe on campus.

  2. I have a query about this statement:

    “The University of Sydney’s Creating a Safer Community for All report, which surveyed 1926 students, showed that only 1.4 per cent of those who were raped reported the incident to the university.”

    It’s shocking! So I went to read the report and here is what I found.

    The report states that, of the responding undergraduate students reporting on the time period covering their undergraduate studies:

    1.6% (n=19) of females were raped on or off campus.
    0.88% (n=17) of students were raped on or off campus. (Note the disagreement in numbers here. Another number is provided later that makes more sense (1.47%). Though it lacks locational context, it’s probably the proper number so I’ll use it, taking this measure to 1.47% (n=28))

    0.42% (n=5) of females were raped on campus.
    0.41% (n=8) of students were raped on campus.

    Using these numbers, with the probable correction, if only 1.4% of these incidents of rape are reported (as this article claims) then this is how many people victims reported the incident to the university:

    Females reporting rape on or off campus: 0.266 individuals.
    Females reporting rape on campus: 0.07 individuals.
    All students reporting rape on or off campus: 0.392 individuals.
    All students reporting rape on campus: 0.112 individuals.

    This is not possible. In fact, the number is referring to all incidents combined, from inappropriate text messages through to rape.

    Quote #1:
    “Of the students who indicated that an incident occurred on campus, 23 reported this in an
    official capacity, 19 of these reports were made to the University of Sydney”

    23 of 1926 is 1.2%.
    19 of 1926 is 1.0%.

    Quote #2:
    “Students were asked to indicate if they had told anyone about their sexual assault or unacceptable behaviour, and if so to whom they disclosed. A relatively small percentage (eg. 1.4% or less) of even the most serious incidents are reported. The rate of reporting within the University was 1% of incidents reported to an official on campus.”

    This agrees with quote #1.

    Quote #3:
    “Across enrolment patterns, for most types of unwanted behaviours, there was a decreased rate of incidents from undergraduate to postgraduate status, for stalking 10.31% to 8.41% and for sexual assault 3.96% to 2.56%. For reported rape there is a significant decline from 1.47% to 0.23% and sexual harassment from 13.44% to 7.96% from undergraduate to postgraduate study.”

    This is clearly not saying that only 1.47% of rapes are reported to authorities. It is referring to the percentage of respondents who indicated a rape had occurred in the survey (in agreement with the numbers above), and how the incidence of rape (and other incidents) is lower in the postgraduate cohort.

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