FOI investigation: Sexual assault crisis across university students

There's a sexual harassment crisis ripping through British universities, with student-on-student attacks becoming the norm in many campuses. Reported sexual attacks in 2013 at both Newcastle University and the University of Liverpool were all internal. According to the National Union of Students’ Hidden Marks report, one in three female students at UK universities will experience sexual assault while studying.

More than 2,000 women were surveyed for the study in 2010 with one in seven saying they had suffered a serious physical or sexual assault while a student. Two-thirds of women had experienced incidents of sexual harassment, such as groping, flashing or unwanted sexual comments.

But is the problem in universities getting better? Newcastle university has seen a reduction in reports of sexual attacks, in the year 2012 and 2013 there were 4 reported incidents whereas last year reported no incidents at all. 

One student from the university of Hull, who did no want to be named, has suffered sexual assaults whilst at university and says the problem isn’t improving. She claims that the number of sexual assaults isn’t going down, it’s just that victims aren’t reporting the incidents.

She said: “I have been sexually harassed at university a number of times. I’ve been groped in a night club and been sexually assaulted in my own halls. I have friends in similar situations and it is seemed as the norm."

“I have never reported any of the incidents and neither have my friends. I don’t want to drag up the bad experiences and I have seen so many times when no action is taken against the perpetrator.”

“We need to increase the level of reporting of sexual violence at universities.”

A spokesman for The University of Lincoln student well-being centre said: “We encourage sexual assault victims to report incidents to the police, but often they feel too scared to do so.”