Grace Tame has reported her abuser, former teacher Nicolaas Bester, to police for online harassment. Former schoolteacher Chris Dawson has been found guilty of murdering wife Lynette to pursue a relationship with a student. The family of a student whose schoolmate was convicted of raping her over two hours are considering launching a civil case against her school for its alleged mishandling of initial complaints of harassment.
That’s within the past 48 hours.
Abuse and sexual harassment of young people are endemic in Australia. From 2014 to 2019 there were nearly 150,000 victims of sexual assault recorded by police agencies — 63% of whom were under 18.
Abuse is perpetrated by young people and by adults. A report released today found women experience sexual violence at higher rates than previously recorded — 51% of women in their 20s, 34% of women in their 40 and 26% of women aged 68 to 73.
Although mandatory consent education will be introduced into the national curriculum next year, advocates are calling for more action to address the normalisation of misogyny, abuse and harassment in schools.
Girls ‘not treated with respect’ in schools
In 2019 a 16-year-old girl was raped at a house party in greater Sydney. Neither the victim nor the abuser can be publicly identified. His behaviour had been reported to the school previously; the victim’s family had complained a group of boys were harassing students and teachers and making jokes about rape.
Addressing attitudes is important — men who hold traditional beliefs about masculinity are more likely to support the use of violence in relationships. Numerous studies have correlated sexist jokes and attitudes to rape proclivity. The latest National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey found one-third of Australians believe sexual aggression can be attributed to men’s sex drive; 33% of respondents agreed “rape results from men not being able to control their need for sex”.
Early intervention is key to addressing harmful attitudes and sexual behaviours, especially in young people.
While several students at the Sydney school were spoken to by police, the to-be rapist was kept at home that day. He raped his victim just four days after her parents had a face-to-face meeting with the principal over the ongoing harassment. He was convicted of six counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one of intentionally choking without permission in May and sentenced to nine months in detention, with a two-month non-parole period. He has been released on bail after lodging an appeal and did not express remorse for his crime.
There is a culture of abuse and harassment among male students in the area, the victim’s father told Crikey, and not enough was being done to address it.
“The view of so many young men is that women are sex toys [thanks to] porn culture,” he said. “There’s more rape happening across pockets of NSW than people realise because girls are just not being treated with any respect.”
The NSW Education Department launched an internal investigation into the school’s handling of the complaint which took 18 months to finalise and has not been provided to the family due to privacy policies. The department said the school reported the assault to police on the same day it was made aware of it, and the department worked closely with police and relevant authorities.
“The NSW government is proud to lead the way in consent education for young people, having introduced the issue into the NSW curriculum in 2020,” it said.
Education doesn’t go far enough
Along with state-based programs, consent education is set to be added to the national curriculum next year. But CEO of Full Stop Australia Hayley Foster said more was needed.
“It’s among young people where the assaults are occurring … We have bugger-all in terms of resources and it’s not safe,” she said.
Although organisations could work with young people and conduct training, it made little difference if students then returned to environments where abuse and harassment were normalised, she said. A whole-of-school approach was necessary to imbue psychosocial safety into the curriculum and ensure teachers didn’t contribute to harmful cultures.
With the cases of Tame and Dawson, abuse was perpetrated by teachers in positions of power — Tame was just 15 when she was sexually assaulted by 58-year-old Bester in her Tasmanian school, and Dawson’s student, known as “JC”, was just 16 when 32-year-old Dawson began grooming her.
Foster is particularly concerned with schools’ ability to deal with disclosures and complaints about teachers or fellow students. Full Stop is advocating for “respectful relationship educators” in schools to serve as a contact point and offer support.
“You have someone like who is a contact point that has the credibility and connection with the kids [for them] to go and brainstorm and talk about their concerns,” she said.
In the ACT, students walked out of a consent education lesson after victim-survivors found the content too distressing. They said the school mishandled the situation.
“[Schools] can’t be doing this content if there aren’t experts and they don’t know how to create safe avenues to make a disclosure and respond appropriately,” Foster said.
For the victim’s family, the consent curriculum amounts to lip service. “It’s all words,” her father said. “Right now on school grounds … the ineptitude in protecting girls is ridiculous.”
Tame said police and Twitter took action on her abuser’s harassment only when she took to social media. Dawson’s student said she had been “groomed and abused” by him. And abuse continues from high school to university, with one in six students experiencing sexual harassment since starting university.
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
Is consent education actually going to help all that much when there’s so much ready access to porn?
Choking, for God’s sake. From a schoolboy! How do boys get the impression that any girl, anywhere, would like to get strangled? This is almost inconceivable to me, having grown up in the 80s
Rubbish. I grew up in the ’70s and porn was around then. It’s been around since people began carving on rock.
This is about respect. Not only respect for women, but also respect for men among themselves as well as respect for yourself as a man.
If you don’t respect yourself, you won’t respect your comrades.
This isn’t only about rape. It’s also about partner abuse. When will something be done about the death each week of a woman by her current or ex-partner? Imagine the mountain of spousal abuse and child abuse hidden under this mountain.
The problem is now in the internet connected world and though it the incredible ease with which porn can be accessed. In the 70s it was under the counter magazines and sex shop videos. The internet has also made it so easy for like minded abusers to meet and share their sick ideas about what sex is. Nothing to do with love and intimacy. All about power and control. Plus the MONEY made in this modern world from porn is ASTOUNDING.
Sex workers are now the Stars just take a look at all the Only Fans media personalities. They are not on only fans reading bed time stories.
The image they portray now being main stream is that women want to be treated this way.
2nd point is that the girls see this and believe that it is normal also.
We are at a cross roads to fix this.
Either sex is a commodity for sale or barter, or it is an experience to be shared between people.
Sale or barter – ”men give love for sex, women give sex for love.”?
I don’t think that self respect is negotiable.
Porn, like sex work, must be the only industry in which women are routinely paid multiples more than males.
Also, I thought that porn was available for free on the net.
It is just the latest excuse to minimise the behaviour.
Why would you assume he choked her in the mistaken belief she’d *like to* get strangled?
Obviously I don’t know about this particular case, and neither do you. But typically, when it comes to sexual assault and rape, that the victim doesn’t like it *is the point*.
A problem in society? Let the schools deal with it!
One of the main aims, if not long lasting achievements, of 60s feminism was to cease being victims, pliable sex objects and become independent individuals not taking abuse from anyone, whatever their sex or status.
Pity that it didn’t last long – the first drop-outs, for some distressing reason, were mothers of sons .
The modbot never ceases to disappoint.
The suffragettes who were trampled to death by horses were probably mother’s of sons too. First thing they do is lie down to take the abuse of a pliable sex object victim. They should not have taken the horse abuse that killed them but they were too lazy and also had sex which led to sons. Drop-outs.
What nonsense. One suffragette walked into horses racing in a horse race, to attract attention to her cause of suffrage: a legitimate cause which compelled activism amongst conscientious females trying to chisel loose some of the male power over society.
Grace Tame’s strength and courage never cease to amaze me.
i couldn’t agree more!
“The NSW Government is proud to lead the way in consent education…” Yep. I’d call that insult to injury.