Uni acts on sex assault report

DEAKIN University will commission an independent, expert-led review of the factors contributing to sexual assault and sexual harassment in oncampus residential settings.

The university will adopt all nine recommendations made by the Australian Human Rights Commission in response to startlingly statistics regarding sexual assault and harassment across Australian university campuses.

The world-first AHRC report, released in August, found 50 per cent of participating students at Deakin University said they had been sexually harassed in the previous year.

Deakin’s own confronting results showed 17 per cent of those students had been sexually harassed at the university in 2016 and that did not include travelling to or from university.

The Change the Course report also revealed 20 per cent of participating students at Deakin had witnessed sexual harassment at the university and the most common kind of harassment was “inappropriate staring or leering” which left students feeling “intimidated”.

Australian Human Rights Commissioner Kate Jenkins wrote to all 39 vice chancellors requesting information showing the action the university had taken in response to the report.

All universities have accepted the majority of the Commission’s recommendations, and 32, including Deakin, have explicitly accepted all nine recommendations made.

“I’m pleased to see Vice Chancellors demonstrating leadership and taking action in response to the report,” Commissioner Jenkins said.

“Ongoing commitment to addressing these issues is vital, and as our report recommends, there needs to be engagement at all levels of leadership in order to address these issues.”