Lady Gaga tattoo inspires sexual violence campaign in Cork

The Cork Sexual Violence Centre has been given permission to reproduce a tattoo that Lady Gaga commissioned for herself and the 50 other abuse survivors who sang with her at this year’s Oscars.

As part of the international campaign, 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, the centre will be handing out transfers of the Gaga tattoo to students at third-level campuses around Cork city.

Lady Gaga’s rendition of ‘Til It Happens to You’ with 50 abuse survivors at the Academy Awards brought tears to the eyes of many of Hollywood’s biggest names. A survivor of sexual assault herself, she wrote the song for the The Hunting Ground, an acclaimed documentary about campus rape.

In a show of solidarity, Gaga and the male and female survivors all got matching tattoos in Hollywood after one of the rehearsals.

Mary Crilly, director of the Cork centre, said they got the green light to use the design from Jacqueline Lin, one of the survivors who shared the stage with the singer.

According to Lin, the tattoo is “made for and dedicated to survivors” and incorporates the infinity sign and a white rose, Gaga’s favourite flower.

The transfers will be distributed to up to 3,000 students at UCC, CIT, St John’s College, the College of Commerce, and Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa.

Ms Crilly said: “We want to raise awareness about sexual assault and the message we want to get out to survivors is, ‘Don’t feel isolated, there is help out there’.”

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Despite rape and sexual assault being more openly discussed in recent years, M Crilly said the ‘it couldn’t happen to me’ belief still prevails among young women and many still don’t realise that 80% of rapes are carried out by somebody known by them.

Millennials grapple with reporting sexual assault if they had been drinking at the time of the attack, she said, with many feeling they can’t due to poor memory recall.

One in 12 female students are raped, according to research published this year by the Union of Students in Ireland. The survey also showed that 16% of students in Irish colleges have had an unwanted sexual experience in their current place of education.

Of these, 38% of students reported that these unwanted sexual experiences occurred on more than one occasion and 36% noted that these incidents occurred either ‘several times’ or ‘many times’.

The union surveyed 2,752 students for the research in 2013 — 2,590 Irish students and 162 international students.