What has changed?
Sexual violence an issue of a ‘rotten barrel’
A year after a Christchurch girls’ school’s survey revealed thousands of sexual harassment incidents and multiple rape allegations Hanna McCallum investigates what has happened since
It is about 7.15am at a Christchurch bus stop, still a little dark, as Dilkee Nanayakkara watches a man ogle a young girl’s legs and peer up her uniform skirt as she steps on to the bus.
The early bus ride is a daily routine for the year 12 Burnside High School student. So is witnessing sexual harassment.
Catcalling, ‘‘continuous staring’’, boys making sexual comments as girls walk by, and repeated requests for sexual encounters are routine experiences for young women. A year since a Christchurch Girls’ High School survey of 725 students found more than half had been sexually harassed, current student Molly (not her real name) says ‘‘it is still a problem’’. While perpetrators know it is wrong and might ‘‘feel a bit of guilt’’, they still do it. Molly says it makes her feel small and inferior – ‘‘like it will never change’’.
She attends Christchurch Girls’, where more than 100 students took to the streets in March last year to protest against sexual harassment.
They planned to protest at Christchurch Boys’ High School before they were turned around by police. Students last year said the issue was not confined to the boys’ school but they viewed Boys’ High and Christ’s College as ‘‘the two most problematic schools in Christchurch’’. Placards included slogans like ‘‘our bodies are not your conversation starters’’, ‘‘my assaulter got a second chance’’, ‘‘no more excuses, dismantle rape culture’’. The march prompted a survey in May last year, the results of which estimated there had been 2677 incidents of sexual harassment of 381 Girls’ High students – more than 18 a day or seven per pupil.
Twenty students alleged they had been raped and principal Christine O’Neill says there were at least 20 more cases where a rape had been implied. It opened a floodgate of emails from parents, including one dad who said it prompted dinner table conversations they had never had before. The school also gathered emails from ex-students, going back decades, who described experiences of rape and assault they had never talked about before. ‘‘We have got . . . an 80-year-old woman writing in and saying ‘we had this’ and here we are, in 2022, and we’ve still got this.
‘‘When does it change?’’ O’Neill says. The revelations prompted the school to set up a new course for all year 11 students. It is discussion-based, led by targeted staff and has an intensive focus on relationships, gender, identity, harassment, sexual harm, consent and reporting pathways. One of the clear issues from the survey was that students did not know how to ‘‘break the code of silence’’, O’Neill says. The course, introduced this year, provides a safe space with expert adult guidance, with content that responds to the students’ needs, and where students can talk about issues and feel empowered.
It will be reviewed at the end of the year and may be extended to year 12 students next year, O’Neill says.
‘‘Unless you keep at it, it will be easy for it to slip back into just the code of silence.’’ Dilkee says it is ‘‘outrageous and simply disgusting’’ how normalised sexualised harassment and assault is. She believes it encourages perpetrators and silences victims. Her frustration led her to take part in a rally at her own school last April, following the protest at Girls’ High, held not only to raise awareness but also to show solidarity with the Girls’ High students. ‘‘As a female myself there is always a question in the back of my mind about how safe I feel in the current environment.’’
The central city bus exchange is the worst spot, she says. Malls and streets are close behind.
Sexual violence prevention activist Jahla Lawrence says protests are a powerful tool and often lead to ‘‘a lot of sirens in the community’’ but it will take time and patience to see tangible change. ‘‘Band-aid solutions’’ are not enough, she says. ‘‘We can only work as fast as it takes for us to build trust between groups.’’
Liam Dunstan, the leader of Christchurch Boys’ High School’s Queer-Straight Alliance group and wellbeing committee, says students at Boys’ High felt targeted when the survey results were released, especially after chalked messages were left on the school grounds in March. The writing on the walls and pavements highlighted LGBTQIA+ rights, feminism and sexual harassment. Year 12 student Richard Anderson says it created animosity and made some students defensive. He heard them saying things like ‘‘I don’t do that’’.
Lawrence says it is important to understand the issues are embedded in society. ‘‘It is not a problem with it being one bad apple, it is what we call a rotten barrel and it is everybody’s problem to try and fix that barrel.’’
Women and girls usually take on the responsibility because there is a perception that it is their issue. However, it is really a problem of ‘‘men and people in positions of power’’, she says, and it is their responsibility to drive cultural and behavioural change, regardless of whether they cause harm or not.
It matters because sexual violence is one consequence of a culture that condones things like rape jokes, gender inequities and harmful stereotypes, she says. ‘‘We are trying to teach every person to protect and treat every other person with respect and integrity and autonomy . . . that is something everybody has to do.’’
Boys’ High year 13 student Jackson Fontaine says the actions by Girls’ High students opened up a lot of conversations and ‘‘an opportunity to do better’’. The language students use ‘‘improved drastically’’, and is more inclusive and respectful, he says.
In her master’s thesis where she explored young men’s understandings of sexual violence and rape culture in Aotearoa, Lawrence says many men she interviewed acknowledged there is a problem. ‘‘They want to help . . . but they need to feel like they are a part of a culture that will support that and that they have peers around them that support them to do that.’’ Boys’ schools help set the standards for how young men are educated and how they are supported to treat each other, Lawrence says.
Christchurch Boys’ High School headmaster Nic Hill says the school was ‘‘well aware’’ of issues with sexual harm and violence before the survey. While it is ‘‘all very well knowing something is wrong’’, it is more important students have ‘‘the strength of character to do the right thing’’, Hill says. Ongoing discussions at Boys’ High are challenging the idea of ‘‘manliness’’. Hill believes violence by men is driven by shame or ‘‘a lack of positive self-concept’’. Schools can help change that by having leaders who can lead by example. ‘‘There is nothing more important for schools to address than their kids feeling good about themselves.’’ Through discussions in assembly, he encourages students to have conversations about ‘‘difficult issues’’ and to seek help. When asked if anything in the school health curriculum has changed, Hill says it has been reviewed but he is unsure whether anything in it was changed.
In the nine years he has been at Boys’ High, he has seen ‘‘huge social progression’’, with students and the community becoming more inclusive, he says.
Empowerment Trust director Fiona Bryan says education has to find a balance between responding to young people’s changing needs, and equipping teachers and families with the same education, language and tools.
Gender and sexual violence issues can be divisive for families, so education for parents is equally important, Bryan says. When the trust runs workshops with schools, it also runs sessions for teachers and parents. Its aim is to educate everyone together, so the community has a common language for the issues raised.
‘‘If you can educate everyone at the same time and go along on that journey together . . . you have got a better chance of being successful.’’
Christ’s College executive principal Garth Wynne declined an in-person interview, saying the ‘‘original discussion was between Christchurch Girls’ High School and Christchurch Boys’ High School’’. He says his school has worked hard to ‘‘reinforce the good values that parents, caregivers and wha¯ nau are teaching their teenagers’’. He encourages families to talk with their children about healthy relationships, and notes the school has a health and wellbeing programme, with an overriding theme of respect for themselves and others.
Of the 35 secondary and composite schools that responded to questions from Stuff about whether they had done their own survey and what changes had been implemented, none said they had conducted surveys. Some had wellbeing surveys or initiatives like Mates and Dates, which had been in place before the survey.
Shirley Boys’ High School and Avonside Girls’ High School both said they would consider surveys about sexual violence in the future.
Canterbury West Coast Secondary Principals Association president Phil Holstein says the association left it to schools to consider their own responses to the Girls’ High survey. Holstein, also the principal of Burnside High, says guest speakers, including police, had been brought into his school to talk about things like consent and inclusivity.
It is a ‘‘significant issue’’ but one of many that has had to take a backseat while schools grapple with Covid-19. ‘‘It is not forgotten . . . I would love to spend more time [on it] but our top priority has to be keeping our schools open.’’
He believes resources are readily available to help address the issues but it is a matter of having the time and energy to give it priority.
Rangi Ruru Girls’ School principal Sandra Hastie says discussions with senior students highlighted similar issues but a survey was not deemed necessary. It supports student initiatives such as Students Against Sexual Harm (SASH), which was formed by head students from multiple Christchurch schools last year. The group, supported by the Empowerment Trust, aimed to train student leaders to be a first port of call and to connect them with experts. ‘‘It is a peer empowerment [scheme] to break that silence and support students to seek expert support,’’ O’Neill says.
Bryan says the Empowerment Trust received two lots of funding for the next steps of the project, including a pilot programme at 10 Canterbury schools.
At the end of last year, Stuff spoke to senior students at Girls’ High and Boys’ High who took on leadership roles in their final year at school. Carlos Knight, who started and led the wellbeing committee at Boys’ High, said he felt most proud about standing up against the things he disagreed with. Hearing homophobic or sexist slurs had ‘‘hurt my head’’, and he decided to speak out what he was hearing at school.
Last year, he called out fellow students at an assembly over their unacceptable catcalling, transphobia and homophobia.
He hoped that if a big enough group of people initiated change, others would follow.
Former Girls’ High student Alfie Smeele, who was part of student-led group Culture CHCHange, said they felt sad about leaving the responsibility of driving change to younger students.
They had noticed several junior members burn out over the year. It took a mental toll, they said, especially when students received backlash from other students and the community. ‘‘I hope one day no student is going to have to feel like this is their responsibility.’’ Lawrence says the Girls’ High survey laid out
a reality that young people already knew, and it is a ‘‘failing of our older generations’’ that the burden of fighting for change often falls on young and marginalised groups. ‘‘The problem is that people don’t listen to it . . . and they don’t turn it into action. We shouldn’t have to mine children – the stories of trauma – in order to take it seriously.’’
Where to from here?
Dilkee says the boys at her school now use language that is ‘‘less intrusive’’ and she has seen boys call one another out on bad behaviour. It is hard to say much else has changed but students feel more reassured that they are not alone in their experiences, she says. While there are places to report incidents, students still worry about whether they are ‘‘big enough to tell’’.
‘‘We don’t know . . . whether [teachers will] actually care . . . that is the kind of reassurance we as girls need.’’ Lawrence says authorities need to have better communication about what is being done, because their work often happens behind closed doors. There is a fine line to tread in supporting young people to protest and express their anger, while also teaching effective ways of fighting for change without ‘‘tone policing them’’, she says.
‘‘We have things that are happening, I think it just requires people to keep pushing, to keep ensuring that accountability, keep raising their hands in every single space and say ‘what about sexual violence’.’’
Where to get help
Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse. theharbour.org.nz.
Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, (males only) malesurvivor.nz/contact/.