Hope it’s a good start of the week ka.
Yesterday, some of you may have seen news about a harassment case and its hashtag ranked first on social media. My little circle discussed it and one has led us to read a report prepared by Australian Human Rights Commission, entitled, ‘Change the Course: national Report on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at Australian Universities, 2017’ I quickly skimmed through its executive summary to further summarize some key issues to share today ka.
This report was the result of a national survey of 30,000 students in 39 Australian universities with a qualitative information through written submissions. It included experiences of technology-based harassment as well.
Let me quote Commissioner Kate Jenkins’ Foreword as follows:
‘…. three unavoidable conclusions of this report:
• sexual assault and sexual harassment are far too prevalent in university settings as they are in the broader community
• there is significant underreporting of sexual assault and sexual harassment to the university, and
• universities need to do more to prevent such abuse from occurring in the first place, to build a culture of respect and to respond appropriately by supporting victims of abuse and sanctioning perpetrators.’
The whole report offered the results of the surveys and 9 recommendations. I’ll share some of them na ka.
Brief findings were:
· In total, 26% of students were sexually harassed in a university setting in 2016.
· Some or all of the perpetrators were students, teachers or other people associated with the university.
· Women experience sexual assault and sexual harassment at disproportionately higher rates than men.
· A vast majority of students who were sexually assaulted or sexually harassed in 2015 and 2016 did not make a formal report or complaint to their university.
Contributing factors to sexual assault and sexual harassment were: attitudes towards women, alcohol, perpetrator abusing a position of power, and residential settings.
Five key areas of action proposed were: leadership and governance, changing attitudes and behaviors, university responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment, monitoring and evaluation, and residential colleges and university residences.
Under each of the five areas, they tabled out who to take charge, what to do systematically and in full cycle ka.
Take for example, on Leadership and Governance, it stated that, ‘Vice-Chancellors (university presidents) should take direct responsibility for the implementation, decision-making, and monitoring and evaluation of actions taken with an advisory body with relevant stakeholders to come up with an action plan, assess and publicly report progress annually…..’
I like it when it stressed how the universities need to have the crucial role in changing attitudes and behaviors of the whole community with measures for evaluating and refining the actions taken. In addition, internal and external reporting procedures as well as support services must be communicated and offered clearly to all.
It gave high priority to monitoring and evaluation, which referred to reviews and assessments of the effectiveness of existing university policies and pathways to ensure that proper support for well-being, safety, and trauma treatments would be given.
The incident yesterday was taken up seriously and promptly. Yet, more needs to be done systematically and Australia's report could be one good practice to consider adjusting to our context and culture na ka.
The full report is from this link na ka:
Awareness must be increased along with actions to be taken as part of the university mission to shape us all to be truly decent global citizens ka.
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