#IDeserveSafety Campaign Demands Action from Government

By Rowey Worner Butcher

[Content Warning]: SASH. 

On August 2 2023, The STOP Campaign launched its #IDeserveSafety Campaign in Australian Parliament. The campaign was created out of a lack of response from universities since the publishing of the Change the Course Report in 2017, six years prior. 

The STOP Campaign were invited to parliament by Senator David Pocock to launch the discussion, with support from members of the Crossbench and Greens Leader in the Senate, Larissa Waters. 

The Campaign also met with the Federal Minister for Education, Jason Clare MP, who has since committed to ensure that The STOP Campaign will be “listened to by the Australian University Accord Panel” and has appointed Patty Kinnersley, the CEO of Our Watch, as an expert advisor on gender-based violence to the panel. 

Representatives from The STOP Campaign stated that since the Change the Course report, there has been ironically “little change in the attitudes and responses of universities to sexual violence.” In an estimate made from the 2021 National Student Safety Survey around 275 students are sexually assaulted within university settings every week. 

The STOP campaign is a “grassroots, volunteer-led organisation” founded in 2018 by Camille Schloeffel with “the vision to end sexual violence on university campuses.”

Work done by the campaign has included the creation of resources for students and the broader community, such as their Safe Response Toolkit, and the development of prevention education workshops for residential halls. 

Observer spoke to some volunteers at The STOP Campaign to ask about the specific outcomes of the #IDeserveSafety campaign. 

Volunteers from the campaign stated that university campuses have a particularly toxic culture surrounding issues of sexual assault due to a combination of “many young university students…trying to consolidate a limited sex education from high school, with the glorification of drinking culture and toxic gender stereotypes”. 

They stated “the #IDeserveSafety campaign calls on the government to create an independent oversight mechanism that will hold universities to account when it comes to sexual violence.” 

“Developed by End Rape On Campus Australia in consultation with student survivors and experts, the taskforce must be independent from universities, include experts in sexual violence prevention, know how universities and residential halls function, and have a national scope.”

Members of The STOP Campaign state that some of the biggest barriers to achieving the outcomes of the #IDeserveSafety campaign come from universities’ positions as institutions which “thrive on power, privilege and control”. 

“Stigmatised attitudes and myths surrounding sexual violence are extremely prevalent in general society as well as university environments. Comprehensive education is required to improve the situation however given that universities have competing interests, sexual violence work is often not prioritised.”

They stated that in addition to societal expectations, there is a lack in the training provided to staff of university campuses. “This needs to be addressed so that any form of sexual violence…can be handled in a way which supports the victim-survivor and aims to reduce further harm into the future,” the spokespeople said. 

Since the creation of the #IDeserveSafetyCampaign, The STOP Campaign released an anonymous survey aimed at gathering students’ experiences of harm and violence within university residential halls. Information gathered from the survey then formed part of the submission made to the Australian Government as part of the Australian University Accord Process. 

This was covered in the Canberra Times recently, where students reported drink spiking, stalking, sexual assault and harassment, with 52 responses from students, staff and alumni. 

As reported, there were unclear processes when reporting allegations that were not followed up.

“I filled out an ANU form to report my sexual assault within 6 months of the incident,” a respondent said.

“I never heard back from the ANU, and this stuck with me. I felt like the ANU didn’t care, and that they had presented a service that they couldn’t even run effectively.”

Moving forward, members from the campaign stated that they will be “facilitating more platforms for university students to share their experiences and advocate together for change in their communities through our social media.”

“Any next steps which are taken to address the problem of sexual violence, needs to be based on consultation with individuals with lived experience, not only of sexual violence, but also of the university context…peer-led prevention work is more effective at bringing people into open and honest conversations about sex and sexual violence. Any future action needs to incorporate these elements in order to implement practical and effective change.” 

More can be found out about The STOP Campaign and the #IDeserveSafety campaign at their instagram @thestopcampaginaus or their website found here.

Despite this issue being particularly relevant for ANU students, universities across the nation have also been addressing this. Honi Soit, the Univerisity of Sydney newspaper, discussed ‘EROC’ (End Rape on Campus), which was established in 2013 which produced two key reports -Connecting the Dots report in 2017 and The Red Zone report in 2018. They have recently launched their #IDeserveSafety campaign which is also aiming to link stories to statistics. This is designed to humanise the numbers to display that every number has a face behind it. 

If any of the above information was particularly concerning to you, please reach out to the following help lines. 

1800 RESPECT National Helpline: 1800 737 732

Sexual Assault Counselling Australia: 1800 211 028

Bravehearts (support for child sexual abuse survivors): 1800 272 831

Blue Knot Foundation: 1300 657 380

Lifeline: 131 114

Graphics by Annisa Zatalini

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