barriers to reporting and strategies to counter these; and the legal obligations of a university.
Toolkits are provided for chief executives, investigators and patrol officers. These provide
practical guidance, such as how to conduct victim-centred investigations and good practice
for those responsible for first response.
The evidence gathered by UUK suggests a fairly wide variation in police and university
responses. There is a significant issue of underreporting and a tendency for survivors to feel
as though the police will not take them seriously. The US toolkit aims to address similar
problems and guide campus police forces through the complexities of responding to
incidents of sexual assault.
Australia
In February 2016 Universities Australia announced the launch of the ‘Respect. Now. Always.’
campaign to prevent sexual assault and harassment in Australian universities.96 This sectorwide campaign will focus on raising awareness, providing clear support pathways and
encouraging a zero-tolerance stance on sexual assault and harassment. The sector is working
to:
seek more comprehensive Australian data on sexual assault and harassment in
universities through a national survey
participate in a review and update of policies and procedures at universities to
prevent sexual assault and harassment
share global best practice models for reporting incidents and supporting students
who disclose sexual assault or harassment
Stage 1 of this work has focused around developing promotional materials for the campaign
which individual universities can use to demonstrate that they take a zero-tolerance
approach to sexual assault and sexual harassment.
Stage 2 will be a survey of 60,000 students to understand their experiences and the support
they received from their university. Stage 3 of the project will involve analysis of the survey
data. This analysis will be used to produce a national report for the sector, as well as
individual reports for each institution, benchmarking them to the rest of the sector.
Canada
In Canada, work towards tackling sexual violence on campus is not as far progressed as in
the US, but it has gained more attention in recent years. A number of specific initiatives
include:
the development of an online resource for university presidents developed by an
Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada taskforce to provide advice on how
to use orientation-week activities to talk about sexual violence
Available at https://www.universitiesaustralia.edu.au/Media-and-Events/media-releases/Respect--Now-Always--University-sector-launches-new-campaign#.VtBkOE1ybcv
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