There are a lot of reasons why people do not report these incidents. Obviously, sexual violence is a big thing for girls, but it happens to guys, too, in relation to nonconforming and so on. Guys in that position feel that they do not have a platform or any support behind them, but they do not realise that women do not have much going on in that regard, either. One reason why people might not report is that people are often made to feel that any given incident was their fault. Because of the culture in society just now, people can be made to feel that something is their fault through things such as slut shaming and victim blaming.
Another issue is that people might not know how to report an incident. I went to a Catholic school, which had a focus on abstinence. Everything was swept under the carpet and not spoken about at all. If something happened, you feared that you would be made to feel that it was your fault by someone asking, “Why on earth would you be doing that anyway?” That would not really be the point; your point would be that it had happened to you. However, people do not feel that they have the voice to say that.
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There is the idea of safe space and respecting other people. You have bodily autonomy: your body is yours and no one can take that away from you. You need to respect that idea and people need to respect you, as well. People also need to respect your voice and that you feel uncomfortable. They need to respect it when you say that you do not like something or that you do not want to do something. There is a severe lack of respect, which seems to be a society thing.
As Mary Fee said, society cannot be changed overnight—that is not how it happens—but there is the idea of safe spaces and people being taught how to deal with the issue. Obviously, the subject is very sensitive, so we cannot have anyone saying, “Oh right, this is what we are going to do”. Proper training is needed. Any kind of sexual harassment or sexual abuse is a damaging psychological experience.
People might feel that they do not have any support in the school. In my school, for instance, we did not have any equalities groups or LGBT groups. Some of my school friends and I were in STAMP from the beginning. We got into it through the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. The guy whom we were working with said that he had heard about a woman who was involved in STAMP and asked if we fancied it. We said, “Yeah, we’ll give it a wee shot.” That is how we got into it—it was never brought to us from a higher power or senior management, as in other schools. We had to go out and find resources as opposed to their being there for us.
It is a good idea to have resources in the school. As Mary Fee said, guidance might be there, but no one really talks about it or expects it to be used. We had that feeling in my school. To be honest, I did not know who my guidance teacher was. It is that way—there are things out there, but you have to go and find them. They need to be more available, and you need to feel that it is okay to go and talk about what has happened. It is also okay if you do not want to talk about it, but the resource should be there for you.
Rape Crisis has maybe 11 to 13 centres across Scotland; there is one in Lanarkshire and one in Glasgow. You can drop in or phone up. It is really important to know that those resources are there, even if you have to find them yourself. However, we would like to see a situation in which people do not have to go and find them. The information would be readily given to them and they would not feel embarrassed and blame themselves for what happened.
People blame themselves because of the culture of victim blaming and slut shaming. People ask, “What were you wearing?”, “Did you have too much to drink?” or “He is your boyfriend, so does it really matter? Does it really count?” Yes, it does. The resources could be there for you.
Obviously LGBT+ has its own oppression and its own issues to deal with, which are different from those of cis-straight women. More needs to be put into that area and more needs to be put into dealing with male survivors of sexual violence. That is not talked about.
That is the thing: you did not talk about it. In a Catholic school setting, the idea was that there would be no sex before marriage. You would abstain from it and would not do any of those things—but obviously people do. People go out and meet people, kiss people at parties and do all that. The idea was that it was to be ignored. You were not supposed to do it, so why should the school give you anything for it? However, we should recognise that people go out and have a drink at the weekend, and they have boyfriends or girlfriends. The information needs to be there. There should not be the idea that it does not happen because the school says that it does not happen.