Director’s Blog – Lisa Charlotte Davis
In producing their 2021 Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges, Ofsted visited 32 schools and colleges and spoke to over 900 young people about the prevalence of peer-on-peer sexual harassment and violence.
Girls who responded to their questionnaire indicated that the following non-contact forms of harmful sexual behaviours happened online or on social media ‘a lot’ or ‘sometimes’ between people their age:
📱 being sent pictures or videos they did not want to see (88%)
📱 being put under pressure to provide sexual images of themselves (80%)
📱 having pictures or videos that they sent being shared more widely without their knowledge or consent (73%)
📱 being photographed or videoed without their knowledge or consent (59%)
📱 having pictures or videos of themselves that they did not know about being circulated (51%)
This is digital abuse.
Not only is it clearly commonplace, but children and young people reported that ‘slag’ and ‘slut’ were commonly used and this is what is depicted in the images below.
Intimate images of Tannah are circulated around the school in our Weaving Stories animation and she has a distressing walk through the school corridors being called multiple names, with a strong dose of victim-blaming evident in the peer response.
Let us be clear that it is not the fault of the person whose images are shared!!!
a) they may have been pressured into sharing these images
b) choosing to share an image with a boyfriend or girlfriend is not the same as consenting to that image being shared onwards with many others
In the animation we see Matilda Speak Up for Tannah, calling out her peers for this digital abuse and trying to capture the teachers’ attention to seek support for Tannah.
The young people we worked with in coproducing the story and characters were really keen to normalise speaking up and challenging harmful behaviour amongst their peers.
If you’d like us to come in and run a lesson on this theme for your students, get in touch – info@changingrelations.co.uk
Image credit : Tom Kindley Sheryl Jenkins
