Research showing one third of university students who are sexually assaulted don t report it is a conservative figure, a sexual abuse survivors group says.
A study by Te Whare Tāwharau, the University of Otago’s Sexual Violence Support and Prevention Centre, published in the
New Zealand Medical Journal, the first since 1991, found 28 percent of the 1500 students surveyed reported sexual assault, including 15 percent who reported rape.
Photo: 123rf
Melanie Beres
Photo: Otago University
Olivia Montgomery was sexually assaulted at Otago University and said there are many reasons people don t report it. A lot of people who were assaulted knew the person who assaulted them and lived with them and had to continue living with them for the remainder of the year and a lot of us didn t want to speak out, or brushed over it completely and trivialised the assault because of the culture of the university.