Survey lifts lid on silent pain of sexual assault

An estimated one in ten first year college students experienced non-consensual sexual penetration – and had not disclosed it to anyone.

The disturbing results of a survey about third level students’ sexual violence and harassment experiences across the country found that 19% of Year 1 students said they experienced non-consensual penetration while incapacitated, through force or after being threatened.

This rose to 27% of students in Year 3 or later.

“Given the relatively high rate of non-disclosure among Year 1 students, the findings suggest that one in ten of the Year 1 students experienced non-consensual penetration during the year and had not disclosed to anyone,” the report found.

Over 1,000 of the female students who took part in the survey described incidents that could be legally defined as rape. One quarter of male students said they had been subjected to sexual misconduct during their time in college.

Just over half of first year students reported experiencing sexual harassment since beginning college. This rose to 62% for second year students, and 66% for undergraduate students in third year or higher.

Over half of students with a disability reported an experience of sexual misconduct by any tactic (56%), compared with 42% of other students.

A total of 6,026 students from 14 universities and colleges completed the Sexual Experiences Survey between February and April of this year which was carried out by NUI Galway’s Active Consent Programme in partnership with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI). It was the first national survey of its kind.

Co-author Dr Pádraig MacNeela, senior lecturer in psychology in NUI Galway, said the survey did not break down the results from each institution. He described the findings as a stark depiction of the experiences that many students have had.

“Over 1,000 of the female students who took part in the survey described incidents that correspond to rape, while one quarter of male students said they had been subject to sexual misconduct during their time in college. Bisexual, non-binary, and queer students described particularly high levels of sexual harassment,” he stated.

The other author Dr Lorraine Burke, NUI Galway Post-Doctoral Researcher, remarked that the survey identified a gap that colleges need to make up a gap in order to respond to students’ needs.

Only 16 per cent who had an experience said they had received information on where to get help from their institution and only just under 10 per cent said they knew how to report an incident.

“These are areas that can be addressed very quickly by colleges and that needs to be one of the on-campus actions taken as a result of these survey findings.”

There were also some positives in the survey unveiled about campus climate. Most students took part in events, workshops, or other initiatives designed to prevent sexual misconduct and those who took part were a lot more likely to be aware of supports and services.

“A majority of students agreed that their peers would be supportive if they were to disclose experiences of sexual misconduct, and trusted their college to be fair in how they deal with reports of sexual violence. These are positives, but students who had experienced sexual misconduct tended to be less trusting of the college or to expect their peers to be supportive,” explained Dr MacNeela.

NUIG is one of eight colleges due to begin a system of anonymous reporting of these kinds of incidents in the autumn, which has been adopted in many UK campuses.

“This gets over the fact that many people feel uncomfortable with making a report but at least if the information is provided the college would be in a position to do something about it, they would be alert to patterns or identify hotspots or areas where there needs to be more active intervention.”