FIONOLA MEREDITH: Our young people need to know what consent means

The student survey conducted at Queen’s University makes grim reading. The stand-out finding is that 5.5% of over 3,000 students surveyed had experienced a “non-consensual penetrative sexual assault”. In most people’s understanding, this means that they were raped.

The overwhelming majority of students who reported that experience (85.8%) were female, and three-quarters of them said they knew their attacker.

Drink was a big factor: more than two-thirds of those who reported being sexually assaulted said they had been intoxicated, while 70.4% said the perpetrator was intoxicated.

Yet, of the 169 students who told the survey that they had been a victim of a “non-consensual penetrative sexual assault”, only a small proportion — 6.4% — considered themselves to have been sexually assaulted, and fewer than 5% said they had reported it to the PSNI.

Almost 63% felt the incident was not serious enough to tell anyone else, just under 35% thought it was not a crime, and almost 40% felt too ashamed or embarrassed to speak about it.

There are further claims of harassment: about a third of the 3,100 respondents said they had experienced “unwanted touching of a sexual nature,” while one in 10 said they had “received unwanted media images of genitals.”

A smaller number — 2.3% — said that sexual photographs of themselves had been shared without their permission.

All of the above suggests that there is both a serious sexual crime problem within the student body, and a great deal of confusion about what consent actually means.

Coming immediately ahead of the A-level results, and the rush to choose university places, these findings are bound to be of deep concern to potential students and their parents.

Leaving home and making the transition to third level education are massive changes in a young person’s life. It’s a time of great excitement, anticipation and enthusiasm, but often also one of challenge and trepidation.

Young women, in particular, should not have to shoulder the additional burden of fear of assault.

The university has a special responsibility to create a safe environment for all students.

This is not just an issue at Queen’s, of course.

As the report notes, the key findings from the survey are in line with national research carried out by the National Union of Students (NUS) and the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), which highlighted that sexual assault and harassment are problems found within university campuses.

And it’s important to point out that only 18.9% of the most serious alleged sexual assaults occurred on QUB property, while just under 50% were in university accommodation, and around 20% in non-university pubs and clubs.

Quite rightly, the authors of the report have called for better relationships and sexuality education (RSE) in schools. This is the proper time to teach youngsters about consent, through open, objective and independent discussion.

Tackling the issue at school makes much more sense than the invidious route that other univer- sities in the UK have taken, in which mandatory consent classes have been imposed on first year students.

Targeting and patronising young male adults, treating them all as potential sex offenders, is not the way to resolve this problem.

Most young men don’t have to be taught not to be rapists, and those that do won’t change their ways as a result of a lecture on appropriate sexual behaviour.

This student-led report, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, is a good start. It has dragged a murky, complex and largely hidden issue into the light.

Now it’s time to start teaching our children how to respect their own and other people’s bodies, before they find themselves alone and away from home for the first time.

A fresher’s bed at 2am, after a night drinking cheap cider, is not the place to start wondering what consent actually means.