Australian schools are reportedly facing increasing challenges in responding to peer-on-peer sexual assault, with many institutions said to be ill-equipped to deal with the consequences. This comes as peer-on-peer violence continues to rise, and the 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study reported that child sexual abuse is now more commonly inflicted by adolescents than adults in contemporary Australia.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Rhonda Riley told a court last month that a victim in an alleged gang-rape case involving students from a Sydney private school would need to complete her HSC exams "going through pain and fear – not only mentally – for some time going forward."
Social worker Anna Coutts-Trotter, founder of the Survivor Hub, stated she frequently hears stories of schools failing to intervene, mishandling reports, or of female students having to continue attending the same school as their alleged abusers. Professor Michael Salter, director of Childlight UNSW, noted that schools' responses are often shaped by mandatory reporting obligations, rather than the welfare of students who have been harmed or accused of harm.
In some states, schools are limited to offering discipline or recourse only for incidents that occur on their grounds or during school-related activities. This means that if an assault takes place off-campus, schools may not have the power to address it, even if the students involved attend the same school.
Dani Villafaña, founder of Youth Against Sexual Violence, experienced sexual assault by a peer from another school when she was 14. She stated that in many cases, if a report does not meet the threshold of criminality, students "go back to school the next day, and you just deal with it, and the teachers just have to sort something out."