Cyberhate would deny women their full democratic rights as citizens, yet this is trivialised and dismissed – just as sexual violence, discrimination and workplace harassment have been for decades.
Australian universities don’t currently do enough to prevent sexual violence.
Ashley Harrigan/Flickr
A Canadian study has found that university women participating in a rape-prevention program involving “resistance training” were significantly less likely to be sexually assaulted in the next year.
Australia is at a critical juncture of increasing awareness and understanding of men’s violence against women. But one important type of sexual violence is often overlooked: acquaintance rape.
You may not have heard the term “street harassment”, but if you’re a woman in Australia, you’ve probably experienced it: whistles, stares, comments by strangers in the street.
Praying before an IS banner in a Mosul Mosque.
EPA/STR
In the late summer of 2014, the international community watched helplessly as Islamic State (IS) unleashed widespread human rights abuses against civilians across Syria and Iraq, with little standing in…
One in three women will experience physical or sexual violence.
EPA/Alessandro Di Marco
Lori Heise, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
A series of research projects is to take place in countries including Afghanistan, Palestine and South Africa to address our significant lack of knowledge about how to prevent physical and sexual violence…
International law is clear on whether sexual consent is possible when civilians are faced with armed soldiers.
Instagram/Furymovie
Brad Pitt says his new Oscar-tipped film Fury is “a real study in leadership and learning to command respect and because of this, I am now a better father”. But while many reviewers have commented on the…
Female members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) helped patrol the outskirts of Makhmur, a northern Iraqi town that was seized back from Islamic State militants in August.
AAP/Eddie Gerald
Women and girls living in Syria and Iraq have been subject to gross sexual violence, economic strife and the psychological trauma of a war that, to them, seems endless. But women in these countries are…
Intimate images are also being used in domestic violence and sexual assault situations – to blackmail victims, or to discourage them from seeking help from the police.
Stephan Geyer/Flickr
“Revenge porn”. It’s when a partner or ex-partner posts nude or intimate pictures or videos online and without consent. And in the absence of better laws, perpetrators are largely getting away with it…
New students at Cambridge must now take workshops in sexual consent.
caffinehit
Cambridge and Oxford announced the introduction of compulsory workshops on sexual consent for first-year students just a few weeks before the start of the new academic year. According to Cambridge, the…
The recent introduction of unisex dormitories in the Norwegian army was associated with a decline in incidences of sexual assault.
Metziker
Earlier this year, Norwegian sociologists Ulla-Britt Lilleaas and Dag Ellingsen released a report on their country’s armed forces entitled The Army: The Vanguard, Rear Guard and Battlefield of Equality…
Rolf Harris’s conviction on 12 charges of indecent assault came at the end of a long trial. The case put sexual assault victims in the spotlight once again – only the latest high-profile example of a growing…
High profile, but what of Britain’s involvement in Congo?
Stefan Rousseau/PA
An important shift has taken place in our awareness of sexual violence. The Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, co-chaired by foreign secretary William Hague and Angelina Jolie, the UN’s…
It’s almost 80 years since Abel Meeropol’s powerfully evocative civil rights poem Strange Fruit was popularised in song by Billie Holiday. But I recalled the lyrics recently, when reading about the high-profile…