British universities do not protect students from sexual abuse

While the whole civilized world is paying increasing attention to the issue of harassment in society, surveys of students of foreign universities show that the final solution to the problem of sexual violence in schools is still far away.

Despite the measures taken within the walls of universities, individual incidents are increasingly appearing on the front page of newspapers and attracting public attention to the problem of violence among students.

Cambridge ignores student allegations of violence

This summer, it became known that the illustrious Cambridge University rejected at least two of the students' allegations of sexual violence on the campus of the university. The reason for the rejection of the allegations was that sexual violence, unlike harassment, is allegedly not regulated by the general disciplinary rules of the university.

According to The Guardian, one of the students was abused by a fellow student back in October 2018. After that, she filed a statement on the fact of sexual violence and for eight months, which the student herself called “eight months of hell”, she was awaiting a decision in her case. However, after more than six months, the student received a notice that the incident would not even be investigated, since it does not fall under the competence of the Cambridge Disciplinary Committee, acting independently from the university administration. It is already known that the student was not the only one who received a similar answer to her appeal.

In an interview with The Guardian, the injured student said that during eight months of waiting, she experienced severe depression, suffered from insomnia and panic attacks. Fear of meeting with a rapist in the corridors of the university did not allow her to study normally and attend classes. She was even more shocked by the news that the university had decided to ignore her statement. She noted that the decision "turned her from a survivor of violence into a victim."

“I could not continue to fight for justice in this situation, I was absolutely powerless,” the student shared.

Cambridge University professors, student union officials, and human rights organizations immediately expressed their disagreement with the decision of the Cambridge Disciplinary Committee. Many human rights defenders have also called the ignoring of such important allegations illegal.

The reaction of the university was not long in coming. According to the Cambridge edition of Varsity, on October 1, changes to the Cambridge University’s disciplinary code will come into force, according to which allegations of sexual violence will be accepted and the perpetrators will be legally punished.

Students and teachers of the university positively accepted this decision made by Cambridge, however, no one doubts that real changes will not come so soon. Firstly, statements about incidents that occurred before October 1, 2019 will still not be accepted. According to experts, many victims of violence take months to recover and report a criminal, so a number of statements may again be left unattended. Secondly, the application process does not promise to be easy and quick.

As barrister Charlotte Proudman, a researcher at Queens College in Cambridge, noted, “the process will make the applicants even more victims, it will be traumatic.”