We are three year 13 students from Macleans College, Lexie Moore, Kara Macgillivray and Georgia Mackey, who are very passionate about women's rights. From the research we have done into this topic, we have discovered it is a huge issue in New Zealand. In New Zealand, sexual assault is one of the key social problems undermining the health and well-being of our population. It has a wide prevalence and can have a high impact. 

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From our research into the current sexual assault education, we have discovered that less than 15% of schools in New Zealand were using the Government-funded programme for sexual assault, as of May 2021. (https://www.1news.co.nz/2021/05/07/less-than-15-per-cent-of-schools-using-government-funded-programme-on-sexual-education/).

There are some programs already existing, such as ‘Mates and Dates’, which aims to reduce sexual and dating violence, similar to what we are trying to achieve. We believe that programmes like this are extremely effective, and they should be funded to be readily available for all secondary schools in the country that wish to use the services they provide.

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We believe that sexual assault education should be compulsory for every year of college, beginning in year 9 and repeating every year until year 13. This is because the more the content is repeated, the better the content will be remembered, and it will become very familiar to all of the students. We aim to do this as we do not want the education on sexual assault to be forgotten as it is an extremely important issue, especially in New Zealand. 

The reason that we believe this education is necessary for young adults to learn in school as research shows that sexual abuse towards young people is most likely to be perpetrated by a family member. This would indicate that the government cannot rely on family members to teach this kind of information, when they themselves may be the perpetrators. it also may be an uncomfortable topic for family members to discuss, meaning that many young adults would not be educated about the topic. Due to this, to ensure all young adults are becoming educated about sexual assault, compulsory education in schools is necessary. 

The education that we would be focusing on includes; consent, awareness, short and long term effects of sexual assault, signs of sexual assault, ways to help and support a person during or after being sexually assaulted, reporting sexual assault and more.

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An article that I found from July 11th 2018, ‘Teen charged with series of rapes, sex offending against girls - more charges likely’ provided insight into the fact that rape is still very prominent within New Zealand secondary schools. It describes how it can be very hard for victims to come forward and share their stories once put through this trauma. Whilst little information is able to be released, this article focuses on the fact that the perpetrator, a 17 year old male high school student, is facing three charges of raping three different young girls aged under 16, with at least two more other violations to young girls that are yet to be charged. Through this article, we can see that sexual assault is a huge problem, even in secondary schools, and education is required in schools in order to allow people to become aware of the topic and to allow victims are made aware of the options available to them. (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/exclusive-teen-charged-with-series-of-rapes-sex-offending-against-girls-more-charges-likely/I22YARF3DKD47XSNWE2YZG62ZE/)

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We are proposing that the New Zealand Ministry of Education create a compulsory sexual assault course that provides real knowledge on the purpose of sexual consent, the consequences, and the right sources of who to go to. We also need to ensure that students are made aware of all the options and outlets they have available to them if they are affected by sexual assault.

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Our petition can be found linked below: