Our Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist appeared before the NSW Standing Committee on Social issues examining the ‘Impacts of harmful pornography on mental, and physical health’ at its first public hearing Monday. This was her opening statement.

The pornography industry is significantly responsible for the harmful sexual socialisation of a generation of young people.

The world’s largest department of education has contributed to rising rates of violence against women, harmful sexual behaviours/peer-on-peer sexual abuse at levels never before seen. 

A generation of boys exposed to rape porn, sadism, torture, incest porn, at the click of a button.

The French equality watchdog found 90% of porn features violence against women with much of it amounting to torture.

30–60 percent of all incidents of childhood sexual abuse are carried out by other children and young people.  Data from the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment Study (ACMS) state: “Child Sexual Abuse by known adolescents [in non-romantic relationships] is by far the single most common category of offending.”

Professor Michael Salter in the Child Light submission, states: “The widespread availability of pornography appears to be driving the increased perpetration of sexual violence by children, particularly boys. 

Girls report routine sexual harassment and abuse by male students: touching, rape threats, sexual bullying, body shaming, sexual moaning and sexual gestures and boys trying to choke them. Boys commonly share porn at schools, airdropping it to kids on the bus, sending girls live masturbation videos.

79.9% of teachers were seeing more sexualised behaviour in schools from as young as Year 2 including children simulating sex acts on other children as documented in our report ‘Sexual Harassment of Teachers’ [SHOT] released by Collective Shout and author and parenting expert Maggie Dent late last year.

Many teachers identified pornography exposure as a significant driver of the rise in harmful sexual behaviours in schools. One said:

“I believe there is an increasing disconnect between women as human beings, and women as objects and I attribute this corrosion of respectful and boundary driven relationships to unfettered access to pornography.” 

We urge you to use every lever at your disposal to ameliorate these harms.

Read our Submission on the Impacts of Harmful Pornography on Mental, Emotional and Physical Health here.

See also: Sexual Harassment of Teachers’ [SHoT] report, Collective Shout/Maggie Dent, here.

Our evidence + recommendations to the Standing Committee on Social Issues, Parliament of New South Wales

AI, "deepfakes" and sex dolls highlighted in our evidence to UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls

We were pleased to contribute to the Statutory Review of the Online Safety Act 2021 in June 2024. It was one of 10 submissions we made in a record breaking year in which we also achieved 34 victories!

It’s out of control…it’s insidious…it’s not okay!” Teacher sexual harassment in schools report

A couple of years ago, we found ourselves comparing notes on the increasing accounts of sexual harassment of female teachers and students with parenting author and educator Maggie Dent. Maggie suggested we partner in a national survey, run through our networks, to get a better idea of the extent of the problem in our schools.

The results are now in and collated in our just-released ‘Teacher Sexual Harassment in Schools’ [SHoT] report. And they are deeply troubling. More than 1000 teachers responded. Almost 80% reported a rise of harmful sexual behaviours in their schools. It is our hope that these findings will act as a wake-up call to State and Federal Governments, Education Ministers and Departments, educational bodies, school leaders, parents & carers and anyone who cares about creating a safe educational environment. Teachers, and vulnerable young people, deserve nothing less.

Click here to read the full report

The findings of a national survey of Australian school teachers reveal widespread, entrenched and normalised harmful sexual behaviours in Australian schools.

The survey results are analysed in the report ‘Sexual Harassment of Teachers’ (SHoT) to be released Monday. The report is published by Collective Shout in partnership with parenting author and educator Maggie Dent.

The aim of the survey was to gain understanding of the prevalence of sexual harassment in Australian schools. More than 1000 teachers responded.

Teachers – almost all female – reported being subjected to routine sexual harassment by male students. They were propositioned, threatened with rape, subjected to sexist slurs and mimicking of sex acts seen in pornography.

While trying to perform their duties as educators, they were sexually moaned, groaned, and grunted at, asked for nudes and intimidated. Some of the harmful sexual behaviours were exhibited by children from as young as Kindergarten to Year 3.

Many female teachers reported they did not feel safe at work and the response from executives and principals was inadequate when they did report sexual harassment.

Teachers reported dealing with multiple disclosures from adolescent victims of harmful sexual behaviours.

Violence against women takes on the form of a bonding ritual amongst groups of men who put what they have viewed in pornography into practice.

Guest post by Dr Em

Originally published at Uncommon Ground Media

A court has heard how Footballer Mike Emery raped a sleeping woman twice in one night and sent naked photos of her to his teammates asking them: “Anyone want a go?” Emery sent these photos of his alleged rape victim with a laughing emoji ‘to two WhatsApp group chats, comprising 70’ men. They did not go to the police, or call for help, instead, one man responded 'Show us her gash', to which ‘Emery allegedly sent a photograph showing the woman's vaginal area’. Emery’s victim only found out about the intimate photos of her he had shared with all of these men after Warrington Rylands club chairman Mark Pye informed her. A jury found Emery not guilty, because, one presumes, this is seemingly normal behaviour. Indeed, it is happening frequently. A different footballer and a different rape made the headlines again in 2024 as the former Man City and Real Madrid player Robinho was ordered to be jailed in his home country after he was found guilty of taking part in the gang rape of an Albanian woman celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Milan nightclub. A court in Milan had stated that Robinho had acted with "special contempt for the victim, who was brutally humiliated”.

Reem Alsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences has delivered her report on prostitution, examining violence against women and girls “as a form, cause and consequence of prostitution”. We welcome her findings, which condemn prostitution as a form of male violence against women and her call for a human rights abolitionist approach to the sex trade. 

Ms Alsalem reviewed 300 submissions (including ours) from around 60 countries, including submissions and consultations from sex trade survivors before publishing her report. We were pleased to be cited in her final report.

In her concluding statements, she said:

I have complied with the obligations to consult widely and to listen. However, this Council has not asked me to listen only, and not listen to those that speak loudest but also to bring in my independent and impartial analysis from a human rights perspective.

We are excited to announce that members of the Collective Shout team will heading to Washington, DC next month for the 2024 Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Summit, hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and Phase Alliance. The theme is “The Great Collision: Emerging Tech, Sexual Exploitation, and the Ongoing Pursuit of Dignity.”

Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist and Campaigns Manager Caitlin Roper will be presenting.

15 recommendations to help protect kids, inform parents + carers