Campaign against sexual assault to be held on UCD campus

A campus-wide campaign to highlight the issue of sexual assault among students is to be launched by the UCD students’ union.

The Not Asking For It campaign will offer students the opportunity to describe their experiences of sexual assault when consent was assumed but not given, said union vice-president and graduate officer Hazel Beattie.

She said in her experience consent is a problem issue among the student population and that a mindset of assumed consent, especially when drink is involved, leads to sexual assaults.

Author Louise O'Neill, whose latest novel Asking for It deals with the aftermath of a rape in a close-knit Irish community, will launch the campaign on October 8th.

Ms Beattie said the campaign will involve three elements. The first will be focus groups, where students will be invited to tell their stories of sexual assault.

These stories will then be printed anonymously on posters and stuck up around the campus under the banner heading, “Not Asking For It”.

The final part of the campaign will involve a survey in semester two that will attempt to record the number of students who have been the victims of sexual assault.

Ms Beattie said the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre have offered advice on how to handle the campaign.

She said it will attempt to tackle the culture of “victim blaming”, which shifts responsibility for a sexual assault from the perpetrator to the victim and encourages silence.

“Victim blaming is such a big thing, especially among the 18 to 24 year group. It is shocking and a lot of victims are afraid to come out then,” Ms Beattie said.

She added that instead of teaching people how to seek consent – “as if they don’t know already” – the campaign will focus on giving victims a chance to tell their stories.