#IDeserveSafety: National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence

“Sexual violence in higher education institutions, particularly universities, has been well documented in Australian research and government reports (e.g. Australian Human Rights Commission [AHRC], 2017; Funnell & Hush, 2018; Mickelburgh & Mackinlay, 2023; McCall et al., 2023). One notable example is the National Student Safety Survey (NSSS) (2022), which identified that one in six respondents had been sexually harassed and one in 20 respondents had been sexually assaulted in Australian university contexts since starting their degree. The incident rates of these experiences were even higher for women and gender-diverse students. Of the respondents who had experienced sexual assault, an alarming 5.6% had made a formal report to their university. Furthermore, fewer than one in three were satisfied with the outcome of their formal complaint (NSSS, 2022). A more recent national survey (n = 1,749) of women international students showed similar results, identifying that 40% of participants had experienced at least one form of sexual violence since arriving in Australia (Tarzia et al., 2025).”