Sexual Harassment More Likely for Youngest Uni Students

One of the big transitions students will make is when they reach university, there will be many formative experiences in store and commonly sexual harassment will be one of them.

Younger students aged 18–21 will more frequently experience sexual assault than older students at university, they are 11.7 per cent more likely to have experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months than those aged 22–24 years (8.4 per cent) or those in the 24–34-year-old age bracket (5.5 per cent).

One in six students will have experienced sexual harassment at university and 1 in 20 will have been sexually assaulted since starting their course.

Where does it happen? Commonly harassment will take place in student accommodation or residences, students who live at the university are 19 per cent more likely to have experienced sexual assault in the last 12 months.

Some 43 per cent of incidents of sexual harassment will happen on campus, 17.5 per cent of cases will have been in lecture theatres of labs and 15.6 per cent will be in the library.

Of outright sexual assaults, 25.8 per cent will have taken place at clubs, societies and social events, 25.3 per cent at student accommodation or residences and 18.4 per cent in private homes.

Students who took some of their classes on campus were 12 per cent more likely to have experienced sexual harassment. Those on work experience were 9.8 per cent more likely to have experienced harassment in the last 12 months.

Students seem to be reluctant to speak out about sexual harassment with only one in 30 making a formal complaint. For sexual assaults, one in 20 will actually make a complaint.

Male students are doing most of the sexual harassment and assault. When surveyed, the majority – 84 per cent – of students reported that the most impactful incident they had experience involved a male perpetrator.

Three in five said that the incident involved students from their own university and one in two said they knew some or all of the perpetrators.

Bisexual, gay and lesbian students were most likely to have experienced sexual assault in the last 12 months. Bisexual students were 3 per cent more likely to have been sexually assaulted in the last 12 months while gay and lesbian students were 2 per cent more likely to have been assaulted within that time frame.

The results are from the National Student Safety Survey’s Report on the Prevalence of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Among University Students in 2021.

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