Author: Ruby, previous Peer Educator at the Australian National University
During my tenure as a Peer Educator at the Australian National University, I encountered firsthand the challenges of delivering sexual consent and gender-based violence prevention training to a diverse student body. Effectively reaching international students has been one of the greatest challenges in implementing the national code, and I think it’s an understandable one. Gender-based violence prevention training, as currently designed, often tends to assume a shared cultural starting point of what gender and sexuality are and how these play out in the context of relationships. For students navigating a new language, education system, and social environment, being asked to unpack deeply personal norms around intimacy and gender roles (often for the first time in a public setting) may be confronting and can add significant barriers to effective implementation.
With ~670,000 international students currently studying in Australia, effective implementation of the National Code requires a culturally embedded, dynamic and whole-of-community approach. Women international students in Australia have reported experiencing higher rates of gender-based violence due to language barriers, limited social support and networks, inaccessible university services and legal information and housing and financial insecurity compounding their risks to violence. With these factors in mind higher education institutions and GBV prevention practitioners need to consider the following:
1. Building training programmes WITH rather than FOR diverse student communities.
- Universities should co-design gender-based violence and consent education with diverse student communities to ensure programmes are culturally relevant, context-specific, and responsive to students lived experiences.
- Engage international student associations, cultural clubs, and representative bodies as ongoing partners in programme design, delivery, and evaluation.
- Employ international students as paid peer educators, facilitators, and programme advisors to design and deliver GBV and consent education.
- Avoid deficit-based approaches that frame international students as lacking knowledge; instead, recognise the diverse understandings and experiences students bring.
2. Availability of services
- Sexual violence reporting, psychological, legal, and wellbeing services should be linguistically accessible, with information and support available in the primary languages spoken by the student community.
- Australian federal and state legislation surrounding what is considered coercive control, sexual consent and gender-based violence must be made available in an accessible way.
- Universities should ensure multilingual staff or accredited interpreters are available when students disclose or report sexual violence.
- Awareness campaigns should be delivered in multiple languages and through communication channels commonly used by international students.
3. Data collection
- Monitoring, evaluation, and learning tools should be available in participants’ preferred languages and collect demographic information, including whether participants are domestic or international students.
- Universities should routinely collect and report disaggregated data on international students’ experiences of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, coercive control, discrimination, and barriers to accessing support.
- Data should be used to inform ongoing improvements to prevention programmes, support services, and institutional responses.
It is every student’s right to feel safe and supported in their place of learning. Effectively implementing the National Code requires meeting people where they are, rather than imposing one-size-fits-all approaches that overlook the diversity of students’ experiences, cultures, and needs.
