Extent of Sexual Assault in Australia and Ways to Overcome It

This project proposal explores the extent of sexual assault in Australia and aims to find ways to overcome this social challenge for establishing a safe community. It discusses the background and justification for the project, objectives, implementation plan, and potential problems. Get study material and solved assignments on sexual assault at Desklib.

Running head: PROJECT PROPOSAL
Extent of sexual assault in Australia and ways to overcome it for establishing a safe community
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1PROJECT PROPOSAL
1. Project overview
The project will explore the incidences of sexual assault in Australia and will make an
attempt to find out ways to overcome this social challenge for establishing a safe community for
women and children as well as for the men. Sexual assault is a severe crime that occurs mostly to
the women and children in the communities. As stated by Graham et al. (2017), sexual assault
refers to the sexual behavior or contact occurring without any explicit consent of the victim.
Such assaults can occur through physical force, threats, or under the influence of drugs or
alcohol given to the victim. Rape, attempted rape, unwanted sexual contact, and forcing a victim
for performing sexual acts are some of the forms of sexual assault (Koss 2018). In Australia, the
occurrences of sexual assault are quite high and it is a concern for the society and also for the
government. According to Racgp.org.au (2018), 1 in every 5 women and 1 in every 20 men
experience sexual assault in their adult lives in Australia. In a survey conducted by ABS in 2018,
it has been found that 65,400 females were victim of sexual assault in 2017 and the number for
persons aged 18-24 years is 30,900 (Abs.gov.au 2019). Thus, in the Australian community,
sexual assault is a serious concern which needs to be treated in the most effective manner to
establish a safe living environment for the people.
Through this project, the researcher will explore the social factors that are affected by
sexual assault and based on the findings, recommendations will be made to overcome this social
challenge. The project proposal will commence with the background and justification for the
project, followed by its aims and objectives, project implementation plan, evaluation plan of the
project and expected outcomes, the expenses for the project and conclusion. This paper will
provide a plan for conducting a study on the impact of sexual assault on the communities of
Australia and how to mitigate the impacts.

2PROJECT PROPOSAL
2. Background and Justification of need for Project
Sexual assault is termed as a crime and it affects the welfare of a society. It can happen to
any individual of any age, race, gender, socio-economic background and at any time or place.
The assaulters can be strangers to the victim or can be someone from the friends, acquaintances
family and hence, in that case, sexual assault is termed as a part of domestic violence. The
perpetrators use different forms of pressure, such as, threats, blackmails, violence, manipulation,
coercion, or deception to commit the sexual assault on weak victims. The children and women
are the most vulnerable people against the sexual assault. Various studies have been undertaken
to explore different aspects of sexual assaults and their impact on the victims or on the society as
a whole. Government of all the countries have strict policies against the crime and the criminals,
yet the instances of reported sexual assault is quite concerning.
Taylor and Norma (2013) highlighted a serious concern in their paper. Many incidences
of sexual assault remain unreported. The victims cannot come of the social stigma to lodge a
complaint against the perpetrator due to many reasons, such as, family barriers, social barriers,
threats by the assaulters etc. The authors conducted their study on the Australian societies and
found that the family barriers often discourage the victims of sexual assault to come forward,
disclose and report the incidence. Through a qualitative study, the authors showed that the
victims of childhood sexual abuse were impeded by their families when they attempted to report
the sexual abuse. This trend is common across people belonging to culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds in Australia. It has been found that the families deny that sexual violence
exists, they are reluctant to report about the assaulters because either they are family or
acquaintances and they have the fear of being ostracized from the society for bringing shame on
the family and all these factors influence the victims and their families from reporting the

3PROJECT PROPOSAL
incidence of childhood sexual abuse. As the women and children often become victims of
domestic sexual abuse, sometimes, they are also discouraged to disclose the incidence as they
cannot produce any proof. The authors suggested that greater public and police intervention and
sensitivity is required to address this challenge and make the victims confident to come forward
and disclose the incidence of sexual abuse.
In the context of disclosure of sexual assault, Moors and Webber (2013) conducted their
study on the benefits of online self-disclosure system for the victims. The process of disclosure
and getting justice is quite painful and time consuming for the victims. Hence, the rate of formal
reporting is very low. The authors found that an online platform gives the survivors confidence
to disclose about their sexual abuses happened in their childhood or during puberty by a family
member or acquaintance. Many vulnerable women have come forward for supporting each other
by disclosing their stories on the online platform and the authors suggested that the counselors
and the welfare authorities must utilize these platforms to extend help to millions of victims
across the country.
Powell and Cauchi (2013) explored ways of investigating the incidences of sexual assault
by the Victoria Police (Australia). The police have established new teams for investigation who
would provide support to the victims while getting information from them and developed
services sites, where the victims would be treated with respect and dignity and feel comfortable
to report the sexual abuse. This way the police are getting more effective ad precise information
about the assaulters, which are helpful for them to arrest them. Thus, it can be inferred that the
victims require strong mental support from the family as well as from the community to come
forward and open up about their mishaps so that effective measures can be taken to remove the
vice from the society and establish a safe living environment.

4PROJECT PROPOSAL
Sexual assault has a severe impact on the mental health of the victims. No matter at what
age they had suffered from sexual abuse, it affects them throughout their life. It often results in
low self-esteem, severe trauma, fear, silence, anxiety, depression, guilt, isolations, loss of
confidence, nightmares and loss of trust (Chang et al. 2015). According to RACGP (2018),
certain groups of people in Australia are more vulnerable towards sexual assault, for example,
socio demographic risk exists for women, young people of age 10-14 years and Aboriginal or
Torres Strait Islander people; vulnerable groups, such as, people with living condition like
poverty, homelessness, working in sex industry, and living in custody or incarnation,
international students, travelers, and people living in the area or war or civil crisis; and people
with mental and physical health issues like physical disability, drug users, alcohol users. In
Australia, the number of sexual assault is rising, and in can also be interpreted that more and
more victims are coming out to report the sexual assault against them. Willis (2018) reported in
2016-17, the number of sexual assault are all time high, it increased from 23,040 in 2016 to
24,957 in 2017, which is 6th consecutive annual increase.

5PROJECT PROPOSAL
(Source: Willis 2018)
Statistics show that 1.6 million i.e. 1 in 6 women and 0.5 million or 1 in 16 men
experienced sexual or physical violence by a cohabiting partner since age 15, while 1.5 million
women and 992,000 men were sexually or physically abused before the age of 15. Women are at
greater risk of sexual abuse. While 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted, 1 in 20 men share the
same threat. Regarding children in Australia, 1 in 6 girls and 1 in 9 boys were victims of sexual
abuse in the last year (aihw.gov.au 2019). Willis (2018) further reported that there is a 12%
increase in the number of victims, from 8795 in 2016 to 9847 in 2017, reporting to the police in
NSW. Among the females, 2226 victims were girls and young women aged 15-19. Maximum

6PROJECT PROPOSAL
number of sexual assault happened in Victoria, up by 13% in 2017, followed by Queensland up
by 9%, , Northern Territory by 6% and South Australia by 4% in 2017. However, Western
Australia, ACT and Tasmania recorded a decrease in the recorded number of victims of sexual
abuse.
The government of Australia as well as all other countries are making policies and taking
measures to not only prevent sexual assault in the country but also to arrest and penalize the
assaulters in a severe manner. The Australian government has announced various programs for
reducing violence in the society, such as, Women’s Safety Package, in which $100 million were
allocated for taking action against the domestic violence, including domestic sexual assault.
There is also Family Safety Pack which covers family violence, forced marriage and sexual
assault. Similarly, there are programs like Our WATCh, which advocates prevention of violence
against women and children, there is a national research body, Australia’s National Research
Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), that conducts research on reducing the violence,
including sexual abuse, against women and children, and there is a national plan for reducing
violence against women and their children (Dss.gov.au 2019). Other than the government, there
are various NGOs across the country that works for the benefit of the victims of sexual abuse.
Thus, the purpose of this project is to explore the ways to educate people about the
impact of sexual abuse on the victims and the societies and make an attempt to reduce the social
crime for establishing a better living environment for the people. The incidences of sexual
assault and violence are increasing in Australia and that is a severe concern for the government.
Hence, through this project an overview will be developed on how to reduce the sexual violence
in the society in an effective manner.

7PROJECT PROPOSAL
3. Project Aims /Objectives
The aim of this project is to create an overview of the extent of sexual assault in Australia
and their impact on the victims. The project will also draw recommendations on how to address
the challenges to reduce the incidences of sexual assaults and create awareness among people
about this social crime.
The objectives of the project are:
 To explore the facts and figures of sexual assault in Australia
 To evaluate the impact of sexual abuse on the victims
 To develop a plan to create awareness among people about sexual abuse and the
importance of reporting
 To recommend ways to address the challenges of sexual assault
4. Project Implementation
The purpose of the project is to create awareness about sexual assault in the community
and taking measures to reduce the occurrences of the social crime so that people can live better.
Thus, the major stakeholders of this project are the vulnerable groups of the communities, who
are exposed at the risk of sexual abuse, that is, men, women, young girls and boys and children,
and people with less income or homeless. On a broader aspect, the entire society is the
stakeholder of this project. It is a social welfare project and the workers who would be involved
in creating awareness and collection data for evaluation of the success of the project are also
external stakeholders. For successful implementation of the project on building awareness about
sexual abuse in Australia and taking attempts to mitigate the impacts, following steps should be
adopted:

8PROJECT PROPOSAL
1) A thorough research will be conducted by collecting the data on sexual abuse in all the
states and territorial provinces of Australia. The data on reported sexual abuse, the
hospital reports on the victims of sexual assault and official website data from the
Australian government will be collected and a presentation will be made with visual
representation of the data. Different types of charts and tables will be used to present the
data of different regions in a comprehensive manner.
2) Once the report and presentation are made, volunteers and NGO workers all across the
country will be contacted to participate in the project on creating awareness on sexual
assault in Australia. The workers will be contacted through online networkers, such as,
emails and social media, as it is the most time and cost efficient way of establishing
connections. The manpower is essential for conducting awareness programs and
workshops on the research issue.
3) A workshop plan will be made to be hosted in different regions and cities as a
collaborated project. Various awareness programs and workshops will be arranged for the
vulnerable groups of the society as well as for the school, college and university students
and as a general awareness programs for the society and the presentation will be done.
4) The advertisements on the programs and the workshops will be released on the social
media to reach out to a larger audience.
5) After the workshops, the attendees will be asked questions and they will be asked to
participate in discussions regarding the workshops and the awareness programs to
understand the impact of the project on them. They will be asked to give feedback on the
social policies that should be implemented to reduce the social vice.

9PROJECT PROPOSAL
Potential project problems:
Problem 1: To convince people to attend the awareness programs and workshops on the impact
of sexual abuse and how to handle them.
Solution 1: Data on the occurrences of sexual abuse in past 1 year must be released on the social
media to highlight the severity of the problem in the society.
Problem 2: Budget is a problem for this project, especially to arrange man power and other
resources across the country.
Solution 2: For a cost effective solution, social media will be used for advertising and
campaigning. For hosting the programs, the school and college authorities will be contacted to
get the permit for a hall for the programs, which will benefit the larger society.
5. Project Evaluation and Expected Outcomes
The evaluation of the project will be qualitative in nature. As secondary data will
be collected for the project, descriptive qualitative methods will be applied to analyze the data.
The data on the sexual assault occurring in Australia will be collected from various government
sites and various newspaper and journal articles. The impact of sexual assault on the victims will
be reviewed from several different journal articles and all of these information will be presented
and analyzed using descriptive method. On the other hand, the data from the workshops
conducted, such as, number of attendance, group discussion findings and reviews and feedback
from the social media will be collected and those data will be analyzed qualitatively to
understand the response level. The potential outcome would be used for developing awareness

10PROJECT PROPOSAL
programs for the communities regarding sexual abuse, its impact and how the social challenge
can be addressed in an efficient manner.
6. Project expenses
Tasks Amount in AUD
Collection of secondary data (journal articles,
databases, government websites)
750
Arranging equipment (computers, tablets,
internet connection, printer)
500
Data collection (Arrangements of places for
hosting workshops and awareness programs,
collecting feedbacks)
1500
Social media campaign 0
Data analysis (Using qualitative methods) 0
Total 2750
It can be said from the above table that the project is affordable to carry out. It requires
some new resources while some other resources are already available. Computers, internet
connections, printers are required to conduct majority of the work, such as, research work,
accessing online databases, writing the documents and campaign programs, preparing the
workshop and awareness program agendas and connecting with volunteers across the country.
For all these equipment, 500 AUD will be used. Secondly, 750 AUD will be required to get
access from all different types of online databases and journal stores that do not have free access

11PROJECT PROPOSAL
to the articles. These are required not only to conduct a thorough literature review but also to
gather information about various aspects of sexual assault and its impact on the individuals.
Lastly, 1500 AUD will be used for arranging places for conducting the awareness programs and
workshops on the research topic. It will be conducted all over Australia and hence, this requires a
large amount of money to make the arrangements. However, as social media and social
networking sites will be used for campaigning, the cost of advertisement is nil. Moreover, as
qualitative data will be collected and descriptive method will be used for analyzing the data, no
software will be required for data analysis and hence, no cost will be incurred for data analysis.
Thus, it can be said that the project has a feasible cost structure.
7. Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that increasing awareness among people
about the incidences of sexual assault is extremely important. By reviewing various previous
literatures and the statistics on the incidences of sexual abuse across Australia, it has been found
that the occurrences have been increasing. At the same time, there is a slight increase in the
reported incidents that what it used to be before. However, there are still many incidents that
remain unreported especially in the backward areas or among the economically backward
classes. The level of vulnerable groups is increasing, which is not good for the social welfare of
the communities. Thus, the rising incidents of sexual abuse are a very serious concern not only
for the Australian government, but also for all the people in the societies as well as for the
international tourists and international students residing in Australia. Therefore, the research
project will be undertaken to increase the social awareness about impact of sexual abuse on the
victims and to find out ways to reduce the social crime. The project that will be undertaken will
contain awareness programs for the communities about the impact of sexual abuse, which can

12PROJECT PROPOSAL
happen to anyone at any age and place, irrespective of any social class, race, nationality and
gender. Although children and women are the most vulnerable to the risk of sexual abuse, men
are also exposed to the risk of sexual abuse and thus, the awareness should be spread across the
society. People should be educated about the procedures of reporting any abuse and they should
feel confident to come forward and report any such incident. Thus, many workshops, campaigns
and awareness programs will be arranged with the help of volunteers all over Australia and
feedback of the attendees will be collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the project. s

13PROJECT PROPOSAL
References
Abs.gov.au, 2019. 4530.0 - Crime Victimisation, Australia, 2016-17. [online] Abs.gov.au.
Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4530.0~2016-
17~Main%20Features~Sexual%20assault~10004 [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].
aihw.gov.au, 2019. Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018, Summary -
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. [online] Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Available at: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/domestic-violence/family-domestic-sexual-
violence-in-australia-2018/contents/summary [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].
Chang, E.C., Lian, X., Yu, T., Qu, J., Zhang, B., Jia, W., Hu, Q., Li, J., Wu, J. and Hirsch, J.K.,
2015. Loneliness under assault: Understanding the impact of sexual assault on the relation
between loneliness and suicidal risk in college students. Personality and individual
differences, 72, pp.155-159.
Dss.gov.au, 2019. Reducing Violence | Department of Social Services, Australian Government.
[online] Dss.gov.au. Available at: https://www.dss.gov.au/women/programs-services/reducing-
violence [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].
Graham, L.M., Treves-Kagan, S., Magee, E.P., DeLong, S.M., Ashley, O.S., Macy, R.J., Martin,
S.L., Moracco, K.E. and Bowling, J.M., 2017. Sexual assault policies and consent definitions: A
nationally representative investigation of US colleges and universities. Journal of school
violence, 16(3), pp.243-258.
Koss, M.P., 2018. Hidden rape: Sexual aggression and victimization in a national sample of
students in higher education. In Rape and society (pp. 35-49). Routledge.

14PROJECT PROPOSAL
Moors, R. and Webber, R., 2013. The dance of disclosure: Online self-disclosure of sexual
assault. Qualitative Social Work, 12(6), pp.799-815.
Powell, M.B. and Cauchi, R., 2013. Victims’ perceptions of a new model of sexual assault
investigation adopted by Victoria Police. Police practice and research, 14(3), pp.228-241.
Racgp.org.au, 2018. Abuse and violence - Working with our patients in general practice. [online]
RACGP. Available at: https://www.racgp.org.au/clinical-resources/clinical-guidelines/key-
racgp-guidelines/view-all-racgp-guidelines/white-book/sexual-assault [Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].
Taylor, S.C. and Norma, C., 2013, March. The ties that bind: Family barriers for adult women
seeking to report childhood sexual assault in Australia. In Women's Studies International
Forum (Vol. 37, pp. 114-124). Pergamon.
Willis, C., 2018. The Number Of Sexual Assaults Recorded In Australia Keeps Rising. [online]
whimn. Available at: https://www.whimn.com.au/talk/think/the-number-of-sexual-assaults-
recorded-in-australia-keeps-increasing/news-story/e276581ac8196fcb961bbb0066c94484
[Accessed 12 Apr. 2019].