By 1News

Warning: This article discusses sexual assault

Students at two Christchurch secondary schools have spoken about being sexually assaulted and raped, with one young woman left covered in bruises.

Two separate surveys of sexual harassment have been carried out at Avonside Girls' High and Shirley Boys' High by Liz Gordon at Pukeko Research.

Following the Christchurch earthquakes, the schools rebuilt on one site and share some resources, and are described as having a “unique situation”.

Of the 572 participants at Avonside, 21 students described incidents of sexual assault that "ended in rape or near rape”.

A small number reported being raped on more than one occasion, including “multiple time for two months when I was 13”.

One student said she was “raped by my boyfriend at the time and forced into unwanted sexual things”.

“I thought it was normal until I talked to someone about it that your boyfriend shouldn’t be forcing or holding you down to do things you don’t want to after saying no heaps and they try to manipulate into doing it otherwise they don’t ‘love them’.

“But they held me down anyway and I became numb, realising there was nothing I could do to stop him,” said one female student.

Another student, who was year nine at the time, said she was assaulted and held down by her boyfriend.

She said he left bruises on her chest and wrists but, “as the assault took place in broad daylight and in public”, she was saved from further harm.

“He grabbed me in multiple places, my breasts, my butt, and tried sliding his hand in between my legs,” said the female student.

The research canvased various types of harassment including verbal, spatial, written and physical or sexual contact.

On average, Avonside Girls' participants had been harassed more than 10 times in their lifetime and experienced more than four types of harassment.

Harassment took place online, around town and on public transport, while socialising or with family, or at or around school.

School age or older males constituted more than three quarters of harassers. The number of female harassers was less than 10% of all perpetrators.

Shirley Boys' High also had issues of sexual harassment, with various kinds of touching and groping.

One boy said he had been touched in class indecently several times by the same person, which also happened in the car on the way to football training.

Another student said a classmate “lifted up my legs and pretended to f*** me. As a joke, but still”.

Most who were harassed described feeling discomfort, followed by embarrassment and anger.

Of the 378 respondents at Shirley Boys' High, just under 20% reported experiencing sexual harassment

The report found 74 had witnessed sexual harassment and 38 had intervened to try to stop it.

The two surveys follow a similar report done at Christchurch Girls' High 15 months ago.

Gordon said the lack of action has persisted despite major publicity around sexual harassment in tertiary education, in the workplace and nationally and internationally with regard to what it known as the Me Too movement.

She said the study has been able to confirm that the high levels of sexual harassment at Christchurch Girls' are mirrored by the experiences at Avonside Girls'.

“The number and proportion of harassment acts was almost identical in each, indeed remarkably so.

“So were the responses, with additional and baggy clothes the most common way students sought to protect themselves,” said Gordon.

Avonside Girls' High principal Catherine Law said the school will implement some changes itself with input from whānau and the community, while she would also work with Shirley Boys' High School in partnership to make other changes.

“This is one of the reasons why both schools commissioned the survey together and I thank Shirley principal Tim Grocott for that,” said Law.

Grocott said the results highlighted a strong need for more support for those who have been harassed and the need for the problem to be openly acknowledged.

“This came through strongly and it’s already something we’re looking into. I really do feel for those who have been harassed and I thank them for completing the survey,” said Grocott.

He said the school will now use the results of the survey to build on what it already has in place. “Some of these changes will be implemented by us alone, while others will be put in place in partnership with Avonside Girls' High School.”

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