‘Hear, See, Follow Our Lead’: ANU Students Demand Action Against Sexual Violence On Campus

By Nuria Olive and Hannah Farrow
Additional reporting by Ryan Bourke

Content Warning: Mentions of institutional betrayal, sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH)

On August 1, for the sixth consecutive year, the ANU Students’ Association (ANUSA) and the ANU Women’s Department held a rally to protest “the on-going crisis of sexual violence on campus”. 

August 1 marks the anniversary of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Change the Course Report, released in 2017. Following this report, the National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) was conducted, releasing damning statistics from 2021 that ANU had the highest rate of sexual harassment and second highest for sexual assault across all 39 Australian universities.

12.3% of ANU students surveyed stated they had been sexually assaulted since starting university (almost three times the national average), and 26.1% of ANU students said they had been sexually harassed. 

ANUSA Women’s Officer Phoebe Denham opened the rally. ANUSA President Ben Yates, Gen Rep Luke Harrison, BIPOC Officer Paria Najafzadeh, and Deputy Women’s Officers Maya Johnson and Selena Wania also spoke during the proceedings. 

A focus of the rally was proposed changes to the Senior Resident (SR) scholarship. The proposed changes have been discussed informally by students as including a decrease to the SR scholarship and less duty shifts. It is alleged by students that SRs will be replaced by Unisafe staff monitoring halls throughout the night. 

Women’s Officer Phoebe Denham spoke to this as an example of ANU choosing “profit…over student safety”. ANUSA President Ben Yates reiterated this, stating “Our halls of residence at ANU are becoming cash cows for investors and are becoming less safe for students who call them home”. 

Denham spoke about their own experience as a previous leadership team member at an ANU hall, stating that they never received any formal training regarding SASH disclosures from residents. 

Denham was told it was not their job to handle disclosures and that “if anyone starts to disclose to you, tell them to speak to a staff member”. 

When Observer asked ANU about the proposed changes to the SR role, a spokesperson noted that they have “not made any final decisions on 24/7 staffing in the residences and the role of Senior Residents”. 

They also said that the Residential Experience Division is “consulting with all residents, including Senior Residents, ANU residential staff and stakeholders over the coming months to inform the after-hours model”. 

When asked by Observer following the rally what they would like from ANU regarding their approach to SASH on campus, Denham emphasised the importance of “a holistic approach” that is “intersectional” and “based on student experiences”. 

Denham concluded by saying that this requires “consulting students”.

BIPOC Officer Paria Najafzadeh echoed the need for an “intersectional approach”, stating “survivors of sexual violence who are people of colour face additional barriers”, which is reflected in the NSSS survey from 2021. 

Najafzadeh highlighted the “inextricable link between racism and sexual violence”. It was pointed out that the ANU must consider racism and sexual violence in tandem because “as long as racism continues to run rife on this campus, sexual violence will follow in its path”.

Deputy Women’s Officer Selena Wania reiterated ANU’s responsibility to better address sexual violence in all forms, as having “the power and resources to do more…than any of the rest of us do”. 

However, “the burden falls on us [students] to educate, to protest and to campaign”. 

In ANUSA president Ben Yates’ address to the rally, he stated that “It continues to be an open secret that perpetrators against whom multiple disclosures are made, are shifted between halls to hide the problem.” 

An anonymous student shared an experience with Observer in which their friend allegedly “reported a SASH incident to staff at their residence” and the alleged perpetrator “was then let into a different residence the following year”. 

Another student from an on campus residence noted that despite having reported their alleged perpetrator to residence staff, the student had to continue living with them, having allegedly been given “no alternate option other than making a formal complaint”. 

An ANU spokesperson refuted the validity of Yates’ statement and said “ANU does not move known perpetrators of sexual violence from one residence to another”. 

Yates also referenced the resident lock-out fees increasing “by over 6 fold, from $15 to $100 with very little student consultation”. Yates said he raised concerns with this and was told “students don’t have the right to be consulted”. 

An ANU Spokesperson discussed how ANU “fully supports” the rally . They stated further that “We’ve recently updated the Student Safety and Wellbeing Plan which highlights our collective progress in the critical area of sexual violence prevention and response over the last year”.

ANU revealed that they have partnered with the “Gendered Violence Research Network (UNSW) to undertake a mid-review of our Sexual Violence Prevention Strategy and will lend their expertise towards our next Student Safety and Wellbeing Plan (2024-2025)”. They have stated that the team “will work closely with students, staff and the wider ANU community to ensure our next plan builds on previous work while embedding best practice”.    

Deputy Women’s Officer Selena Wania expressed that “our trust in the ANU has been broken.”

“We call on the ANU again this year to hear, see and follow our lead”.

Support is available:

Canberra Rape Crisis Centre: 02 6247 2525 (7am–11pm) or 131 444 (after hours)

1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

Domestic Violence Crisis Service

Lifeline: 13 11 14

ANU Counselling: (02) 6125 2442 or [email protected] 

ANU 24/7 Wellbeing & Support: 24/7 1300 050 327 or 0488 884 170 or [email protected]  

Graphics by Will Novak

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