Can consent education help combat men's violence?

Albanese unveils $925m domestic violence fund

There are growing calls for consent to become a normalised topic among young people as discussions continue into how to combat the crisis of domestic violence across the country.

It’s an area advocates believe could help prevent men’s violence towards women, if caught early enough in school.

But more needs to be done overall, with leaders telling 9news.com.au that consent education is only “one piece of the puzzle”.

Shureeka Alves, manager of therapeutic services at Kids First Australia, believes consent education can improve young men’s beliefs.

Alves has worked with young perpetrators and leads a consent education course that tackles harmful stereotypes through evidence-based, age-targeted information.

“Gender violence starts from teaching our young people, what is consent, and teaching them about equality and teaching them about respect,” she said.

“I feel like consent should be taught from a very young age.

“Even understanding hugs, does that person want a hug? Did you ask permission, did they consent to it?”

Kids First Australia’s manager of therapeutic services Shureeka Alves.

Consent education can be a difficult topic to teach, with many outside factors influencing the actions of young men, Alves said.

She said misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate continue to have a hold over young impressionable students, along with depictions of violent pornography.

“It’s tricky because they often (are) influenced by people like Andrew Tate,” Alves said.

“They are on these Reels and you hear it in schools, you hear them speak that women should be this way or that way. I feel like that really kind of influences what we see today in society.

“Some pornography depicts very gendered stereotypes of what women should be, males should be very dominant and (women) should be a particular way.

“I feel like that also influences or drives a lot of the violence against women that we see today.”

Consent education became mandatory in Australia last year, with all states and territories responsible for managing what this looks like for their schools.

Earlier this year, the federal government also released a set of guidelines on how consent should be approached when discussing with young people.

The guidelines suggest educators should provide a clear and consistent definition of what consent means, along with providing practical advice on how to communicate with young people about healthy sexual relationships and consent.

Alves leads the To Future Me online program, which has finished its successful pilot in schools across the state.

She hopes the program will reduce gender-based violence, by reaching all of the students, not only the receptive ones.

In Australia this year, at least 27 women have been killed by alleged gender-based violence, which is equivalent to one woman every four days.

That’s 11 more women than the same time last year.

Consent education only ‘part of the puzzle’

While education around respectful relationships and age-appropriate consent education is incredibly important, Kathleen Maltzahn believes more needs to be done outside of the classroom to improve rates of gender-based violence.

Maltzahn is the chiefexecutive at Sexual Assault Services, and she told 9news.com.au that consent education was only “part of the puzzle”.

“What we are seeing is there’s a bit of improvement around attitudes, but that hasn’t impacted on rates of violence, particularly sexual violence,” she said.

“The dilemma is that we have consent education in schools and then what kids and young people see in the broader society is exactly the opposite.

“We tell them they can’t have sex unless the other person wants to. But then they see someone was made to have sex and didn’t want to, they go through the court system and they probably won’t be treated fairly.

“Or we tell them sex is mutual but then (they) watch brutal pornography that says women, particularly girls, like being hurt and they don’t need to consent and no means yes.”

Sexual Assault Services chief executive officer Kathleen Maltzahn.

Maltzahn believes it’s “not fair” to only roll out consent education in schools, without the “bigger pieces” of work being done to show children what they are learning does apply outside of the classroom.

“It’s unfair to take the people with the least power in the community, such as children and young people, and expect them to change,” she said.

Moving forward, Maltzahn hopes the government can begin to improve discussions around sexual violence, which is a form of violence against women.

“We need to look at the criminal justice system. We know too many victims don’t report because they don’t trust what will happen and not get the response they should,” she said.

“We should be taking action around pornography including age verification.

“We should be funding sexual violence services, so when people are victimised they get the response they need for as long as they need.

“There’s so much we can do.”

National Domestic Violence Service: 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). If you are in immediate danger call triple zero (000).