University should be one of the best times of your life. Independent for the first time, you’re surrounded by new people, new experiences and new knowledge. For many, it’s a time of exploration and self-discovery – and lots of hangovers. For others, however, the experience isn’t so pleasant. A new report from Revolt Sexual Assault and The Student Room lays bare the brutal scale of sexual violence at UK universities: it seems that the majority of students are not having such a good time after all.
A total of 4,500 students from 153 different UK institutions responded to the study – the first consultation of students on this issue in a decade. What it found was shocking: 62% of students and graduates have experienced sexual violence as per the definition used by Rape Crisis. Groping, harassment, unwanted touching, coercion, sexual assault, rape – all commonplace, it turns out, in UK universities. Shockingly, 8% of female respondents said they had been raped at university – double the 4% of all women in England and Wales that the Office for National Statistics estimates.
Perhaps even more shocking is how few victims feel able to report crimes to their universities. We already know how low rates of reporting to the police are – Rape Crisis England and Wales says about 15% of those who experience sexual violence report it to the police. Clearly this is an issue for universities, too. Only 6% of respondents reported their experiences to their university; only 2% felt both able to report and satisfied with the reporting process.
The figures come shortly after the University of Cambridge admitted to “a significant problem” with sexual misconduct following the introduction of a new anonymous reporting system that led to 173 complaints of “improper behaviour” being made in nine months. The picture is clear: there is an epidemic of sexual violence at UK universities.
The impact this has on students cannot be overestimated. Alongside significant consequences for self-confidence, mental health and social life, many students simply feel unable to continue their studies. A quarter of respondents who had experienced sexual violence said they had skipped lectures and tutorials, or dropped modules to avoid perpetrators; 16% suspended their studies or dropped out altogether.
More needs to be done. Many students will be miles away from home, living alone and with no idea where to turn for help in the event that they are sexually assaulted. When they do seek help, many hit a brick wall, their trauma exacerbated by the reporting process; at least one respondent saw their complaint “brushed under the carpet”. There are parallels with the student mental health crisis here: isolated from existing support networks, met with obstructive processes from counselling services and those supposedly responsible for pastoral care, many students slip through the cracks. This shouldn’t be happening.
Reporting processes need to be dramatically improved: Cambridge’s anonymous system is a step in the right direction. Many students say that their complaints require months of emails, meetings and phone calls before they are even begun to be addressed – a gruelling and traumatic task, especially when you’re trying to concentrate on your degree. The processes need not only to be streamlined but to be designed with the wellbeing of students at their heart.
Counselling services also need to do a better job. Mental health services should be signposted to students who may not know they’re there; they also need to be available when a victim of assault most needs them. The same goes for specialist support systems: promoting these both during freshers’ week and throughout the term is vital. Diversity should be considered here. Students who are disabled or LGBT, for example, may need different services, and it’s important that a one size fits all approach is not applied.
Students need to know what to do in the event that they’re sexually assaulted. But they also need to know when they’ve been sexually assaulted. One particularly striking statistic from Revolt Sexual Assault’s study is that 56% of students believed that their experience “wasn’t serious enough” to warrant reporting. It’s important for students to be aware that any experience of sexual violence is worthy of time, attention and resolution. For the offender, that may not mean expulsion or prosecution, but help in learning how their behaviour is wrong and has affected others.
This kind of education should start before students even get to university, and schools and universities should be working together to provide it. Some institutions already provide consent workshops – informal discussion groups where students are educated on consent, “grey areas” and more. These should be rolled out throughout the country, particularly in those institutions where casual misogyny is considered to be the norm.
These institutions have a duty of care to their students. Investing time, money and energy into adequate services for those who have been sexually assaulted should not be optional. Universities should be ashamed that they are not doing more – now’s their chance to get it right.
• Emily Reynolds is a freelance journalist and the author of A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind
