We act to make Sexual Assault Education Compulsory In New Zealand Secondary Schools. We believe that this will best impact the issues our issue of sexual assault and is necessary in order to create a change in the high rates of Sexual Assault. These educational resources would be targeted at both girls and boys starting from the beginning of high school and following through yearly. We believe that this would best impact the high rates of sexual assault due to the fact that the education that young people experience during their early years of schooling plays a large role in the shaping of life values. The lack of education on sexual assault is not allowing the young New Zealanders to develop into knowledgeable adults that are able to make decisions that will not negatively affect others. If education was to improve and potential perpetrators are given critical information through education, this would hopefully reduce alarming statistics around sexual assault. Improved sex ed would also help young people to form healthy and safe sexual relationships and allow them to recognise unhealthy ones.
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.
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 due to the fact that the more the material is repeated, the better the content will be understood and memorised. This will allow it to become familiar to the students. We act 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.
We believe that is necessary for sexual assault education to be taught to young adults in schools 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.