A psychologist has warned that the early sexualisation of children and online pornography are to be blamed for the significant rise in student-to-student sexual assault at school.
Michael Carr-Gregg, who specialises in parenting, children and adolescents, said that sexualisation of kids, through the media and their easy access to online porngraphy are two factors contributing to the increase in allegations in NSW.
Data shows that the�number of alleged student-on-student attacks rose from 90 incidents in 2015 to 142 last year in NSW government schools alone.
In the first five months of this year, there were 87 allegations of sexual and indecent assault in primary and secondary schools involving students.
In 2015, two allegations of sexual assault involving NSW primary-school students on other students were reported. This rose to 14 incidents last year, and seven allegations �involving primary schoolers were reported in May.
Incidents involving alleged �indecent assaults also increased in primary schools, with 19 student-on-student allegations in 2015, 41 in 2016, and 35 in�May.
Dr Carr-Gregg said the sexualisation of children through social and mainstream media was all-pervasive.
“Anecdotally, I would say parents would not have a clue what their children are doing online, �period, including their activities of watching pornography,” he said.
“We have to have a conversation with our children about this stuff. It’s not a matter of if they see it, it’s when. If a kid has a phone then they have access to this stuff, that’s the problem.”
The NSW Education Department acknowledges allegations are rising, and also attributes it to an increase in awareness and better reporting of cases across different categories.
“Schools are amongst the safest places in our community. From time to time, incidents do �affect schools just as they affect communities and society as a whole,” a department spokesman said.
“While there has been an increase in reporting of alleged sexual assault and indecent assault incidents from 2015 to 2017, it should be noted that there is a correlating increase in reporting across all incident categories during this time period, due to awareness and education programs highlighting the importance of �incident reporting in schools.”
The spokesman said the department supported polices of schools about working with parents and relevant authorities to investigate and support students affected by alleged incidents, and mandatory reporting procedures were in place.
Sources:�Theaustralian.com.au�and�Dailytelegraph.com.au
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