Consent lessons not enough to stop sexual violence in Australia, Plibersek, Car warn round-table
Leaders have spoken to the challenge of curbing an emerging crisis at a high-level meeting targeting youth sexual violence.
Australia cannot rely on consent education alone to combat sexual violence, the leader of a key round-table has warned.
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and NSW Education Minister Prue Car convened Friday’s meeting in Sydney to address alarming incidents of alleged sexual violence and harrowing statistics regarding youth misogyny.
School bosses joined experts and politicians for the brainstorm, as the Women’s Safety Commissioner Dr Hannah Tonkin said the nation needed urgent action.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Ms Car warned discussions must go broader than consent education alone.
‘’Schools can only do so much when this is a challenge the community faces, that society faces that when kids go home and they grab their phone … or they get onto their laptop, there are other influences coming at them,’‘ she said.
‘’Teachers and schools are at the very forefront of this challenge. But the answer is not going to be adding more to the curriculum.’‘
Lawmakers are canvassing ways to tackle violent and degrading pornography and algorithms that push extreme content to children.
Forcing websites to remove degrading material and designing an opt-out approach to harmful algorithms will also be discussed.
The meeting comes as the federal opposition has been divided in its own response to the women’s safety crisis.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan on Friday stood by earlier comments that a ‘‘feminisation’‘ of school curriculums, particularly mandatory Respectful Relationships training, had led to boys embracing sexist online content.
‘’These anti-boy ideologies have no place in our schools,’‘ he said of programs reflecting ‘‘personal male privilege and power’‘.
The comments were at odds with senior Liberal Jane Hume’s backing in of the curriculum.
Ms Car on Friday said she wanted to see male politicians using their voices for good.
‘’Teaching young people to be respectful of one another is not feminisation. That’s helping young people to be good human beings,’‘ she said.
The leaders cited several harrowing statistics on Friday morning.
Ms Plibersek, citing Dublin University research, noted a teenage boy’s social media feed took just an average of 23 minutes to serve misogynistic content.
Dr Tonkin raised a recent University of Melbourne study that found nearly a quarter of young boys believed feminism was damaging to society and could be resisted with violence if necessary.
The roundtable comes amid a spate of violent alleged sexual attacks perpetrated by the city’s youth.
Three schoolboys currently stand accused of an hours-long pack rape of a south-west Sydney teenager.
Three teens from Sydney’s prestigious Scots College are also before the courts, alleged to have raped a 14-year-old girl in an alleyway.
A recent suspected death of a schoolgirl in Sydney’s north caused by consensual choking has also fuelled debate about the influence of violent pornography and dangerous attitudes towards sexual relations.
