Are we ignoring an epidemic of sexual violence in schools?

Are we ignoring an epidemic of sexual violence in schools?


In three years, 5,500 sexual offences against pupils have been reported to police. Too often staff seem ill-equipped or unwilling to deal with the problem – now pressure is mounting for the government to take action


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‘When sexual harassment and assault starts at such a young age, it can be hugely confusing for children.’ Photograph: Getty/iStockphoto




“I want to die.” Rob and Claire Johnson’s daughter was screaming, hysterical and inconsolable.
Ten-year-old Emily told them a boy at school had slapped her, hard, across the face: “I want to die. Nobody believes me. He’s hitting me and nobody believes me.” “We didn’t know what to do,” Rob tells me, his voice echoing the helplessness and frustration he felt. “Hearing her say those words – what parent wants to hear that from their 10-year-old daughter?” When Claire tried to speak to the school about the incident, they quickly dismissed it as “a misunderstanding”, telling her: “Everyone’s happy now.” But Emily was far from happy. Over the subsequent two weeks, she gradually opened up to her parents with the help of her GP. Slowly, she described how the boy in question had sexually harassed and assaulted her over the past 10 months. It emerged that another child had made a detailed report to the school after witnessing the boy intimidating and assaulting Emily. The classmate had told staff it happened in a corner of the playground known as the “sex corner”, where the boy had forced Emily against a wall, pinning her hands on either side of her as he gyrated and rubbed his body against hers. Emily closed her eyes and started crying. But school staff hadn’t considered the incident serious enough to contact Emily’s parents. In the intervening months, the Johnsons watched as Emily became angry and withdrawn, and started self-harming. They couldn’t understand what was wrong.
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Emily is far from alone. According to BBC research, 5,500 sexual offences were reported to police as having taken place in UK schools over a three-year period to July 2015, including 600 rapes. And a recent women and equalities select committee (WESC) report highlighted widespread sexual harassment and abuse of girls at school.

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Earlier this year, lawyers wrote to the education secretary, Justine Greening, to warn her that the lack of clear guidance telling schools what they should do when rapes and sexual assaults are reported could leave her open to legal action. At the time, the Department for Education said the Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance was last updated in 2015, but was kept under regular review. “Schools should be safe places and they have a duty to protect all pupils and listen to any concerns. We issue regularly updated safeguarding guidance – which includes advice on peer-on-peer abuse – to protect pupils’ welfare.” Under questioning by the WESC this year, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, said official guidelines needed to be clear that abusers could not return to classes alongside people they attacked, and pledged that the government would shortly launch a consultation to make the required changes.

Sarah Green, co-director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, says the promised new guidelines “frankly can’t come soon enough”. “We know that many schools currently fail terribly when girls and their families report sexual assaults – because heads, teachers and governors do not have adequate training or guidance in this area. Girls have been told to just put up with this behaviour for too long.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/12/are-we-ignoring-an-epidemic-of-sexual-violence-in-schools