UCC students create sexual violence awareness campaign

UCC students outside the Quad, raising awareness of sexual assault and de-bunking harmful myths. Picture: Alana Daly Mulligan / @alana_d_m

A group of UCC students has launched a new campaign focused on debunking myths surrounding sexual assault. 

The students say the aim of the "Not Asking for it" project is to demonstrate that clothes do not determine consent.

The campaign seeks to end victim blaming, and to highlight the need to place the blame for sexual assault on the perpetrator. 

It has been created by UCC Feminist Society and UCC Fashion Society, in collaboration with UCC Students' Union (SU) Welfare Officer Jamie Fraser. 

The visual campaign features five students in clothes for college, school, work, the gym and a nightclub against the backdrop of UCC's quad.

UCC students outside the Quad, raising awareness of sexual assault and de-bunking harmful myths. Picture: Alana Daly Mulligan / @alana_d_m

The initiative is part of this week's Consent Awareness Week, and there will also be virtual Active*Consent and Bystander Intervention training offered to students. 

An in-depth study by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and NUI Galway earlier this year found that 29% of female, 10% of male, and 28% of non-binary students have experienced non-consensual penetration by incapacitation, force, or threat of force during their time in college, according to the USI and NUIG Sexual Experiences Survey 2020. 

Of those, 49% of males, 35% of females, and 25% of non-binary students never shared their story.

"The rise in instances of sexual assault over the past few months and the results of the Sexual Experiences Survey show us that we are now facing an epidemic with regards to this issue," said Jamie Fraser, UCC SU Welfare Officer and organiser of Consent Awareness Week.

"From a union standpoint, we’ve been engaging with the national advisory committees, attending meetings on a national level, working to see the formation of a sexual misconduct policy and working with societies and various other organisations to launch awareness campaigns such as Consent Week to see cultural and political change."

"For too long clothing has been used as an excuse for sexual violence. We say no more. What an individual chooses to put on in the morning, is not an invitation of any kind," said Maeve O’Sullivan, Chairperson of UCC Fashion Society.

"It is not enough any more to just understand yes or no, but what is behind the words. Is there coercion, an assumption or pressure from inside or outside the room, alcohol or drug use?"

"Clothes are not a justification for sexual assault," said Chloe Boland of UCC Feminist Society.

"For far too long it’s been said that a person's clothes meant they were 'asking for it.' This idea is harmful and untrue."