WEBVTT - How a new report says we can modernise laws on consent and sexual harm 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:06.000 Kiyota. 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:09.200 I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:16.360 daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. There are 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.480 calls for urgent changes to modernize our laws to better 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.239 protect victims of sexual violence. A new Helen Clark Foundation 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.360 report identifies several gaps in our laws that need closing 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:34.080 and changes to our justice system to reduce under reporting. 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:39.000 Ministry of Justice data estimates about two hundred and nine 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.839 thousand incidents of sexual assault occur every year, affecting around 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:46.360 eighty two thousand victims. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:47.040 Nearly one in. 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.600 Four adults report having experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.480 Today on the Front Page, Senior researcher Sarah Bell is 0:00:55.520 --> 0:01:02.040 with us to take us through the report. First off, Sarah, 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:03.959 tell me about the purpose of this. 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.320 Report, Thanks, Chelsea. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.600 So we know that New Zealander's face really alarming at 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.080 unacceptual rates of sexual violence, and that causes huge harm 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.839 to those individuals and to their families and their communities, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:20.360 and also causes huge costs for New Zealand and our society. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.039 So we know that nearly one in four New Zealand 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.800 adults has experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes and that's 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.520 about eighty two thousand victims a year, which is obviously 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.480 far too many. So a lot is already happening to 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.680 address sexual violence. But our report looked at a number 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.920 of areas in which New Zealand laws and policies are 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.840 falling behind and international best practice, or falling behind technological changes, 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:47.480 or falling behind the way that society thinks about sexual norms. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.559 So we looked at a number of different areas where 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.840 we felt that was the case. One of the big 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.200 ones was around very low levels of reporting of sexual 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.400 violence in New Zealand and the low rates of reported 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:02.840 cases that make it through to a verdict. So we 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.560 know that only around ten percent of sexual violence is 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.120 reported to police in New Zealand, and of those reported cases, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.160 only about twelve percent to make it through to a 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.480 conviction within two years. That's a huge amount of sexual 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:21.320 violence going unreported, undealt with perpetrators not being addressed. So 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:23.760 we've come up with a number of practical recommendations to 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:28.520 support victims and survivors to report sexual violence, to support 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:32.400 them through the process, to make trials less traumatic for them, 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.680 and to provide some alternative pathways where we can address 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:40.720 offending without the perpetrators necessarily need to go to prison 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.360 if that's not what the survivors are actually looking for, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.639 and that might encourage more people to actually come forward 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.120 if they know that the perpetrator is not necessarily going 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.480 to face a long jail sentence, but they do want 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.440 the offending addressed. And we also looked at some ways 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.600 of modernizing New Zealand laws to update our definition of 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.760 consent to an affirmative consent or yes means yes consent, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:04.920 to address the harm from sexually explicit deep bakes, and 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.480 to eradicate the practice of virginity testing. And we looked 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.360 at a common theme around education across all of the topics. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.720 We looked at people really emphasize the importance of education, 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.520 both for young people and for society as a whole, 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:19.600 and to support the kind of behavioral change that we 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:20.480 would like to see. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.280 I suppose a good place to start is what does 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.480 the law say about consent at the moment? 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.520 Sure so people will be familiar I think with the 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.520 old no means no concept where you respect it if 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.960 someone says nor, things have been moving in society and 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.720 in educational settings towards more of a yes men's yes model, 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.640 which means that you can't assume that someone is consenting 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.600 to sex just because they don't say no. Now, our 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.160 law at the moment is a sort of partial affirmative 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.720 consent model, so you can't assume that someone's consenting just 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.920 because they don't say no. But the Supreme Court has 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.800 said that there are some situations where if there's an 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.680 the factor in play, you can assume cent sometimes, so 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.080 they call it passivity plus X. And one of the 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.440 examples they've given for when that might be the case 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:14.640 is relationship expectations. So if the person has consented or 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.560 not resisted before, maybe you can assume that they're consenting 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.520 on this occasion. That can be really problematic. We know 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.640 that a freeze response is not uncommon when people are 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:28.280 sexually assaulted, and we also know that people in adducive 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.760 relationships have real trouble communicating about consent. So that ability 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.520 in some cases to assume consent, we think, is a 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:36.880 problem that needs to be fixed. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.240 It sounds simple to change that messaging, going from no 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.279 means no to yes means yes, But how do you 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:44.039 actually do that? 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.680 It's relatively simple. In law, we've got some pretty sort 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.839 of simple and concrete changes to the law that we 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.080 would propose. It's not a hugely radical change, as I say, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.600 our laws most of the way they're already, So we 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.360 would just recommend that instead of saying, you know, a 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:02.720 person has not consented just because they don't say or 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.479 do anything, we recommend saying a person doesn't consent unless 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.400 they say or do something to communicate consent, and we 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.120 don't say how they need to do that. Right, So 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.599 you don't have to say the word yes, You just 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.480 have to have given some indication that this is wanted 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.800 to sex, which is, you know, what we want in 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:22.440 society for people to be able to do. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.000 Yeah, I've heard quite a lot of heroin stories that 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.280 are really motivating me to push on with us and 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.560 actually show how urgent it is. One of the main stories, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.480 or the key stories that I've been saying, is about 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:42.560 a thirteen year old girl and I've got a twelve 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.839 year old boy. So Sophiel was very awfully young. She 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.960 was deep faked, and we shared amongst her peers at 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.920 school just year nine, and she attempted suicide on school site. 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.400 It was absolutely terrifying and traumatizing, not for the just 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.880 for the individual, but for her, the peers and the 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.640 school and the lack of support and resource around this 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.520 is really terrifying. It would be on the extreme side 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.440 of things, But other than that case, I've heard of many, 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.440 many other young, predominantly females where this is happening to her, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.520 whether it's at school, university for example, or within the workplace. 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:23.960 We've heard a lot about sexually explicit deep fakes, especially recently. 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.000 I remember this year at MP Laura McClure held up 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.960 a naked quote unquote photo of herself in Parliament just 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.280 to prove how easy it was to manufacture. Now, that 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.520 was a deep fake image, it wasn't actually a naked 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.000 photograph of herself. And we know that existing laws are 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.599 quite behind the eight ball when it comes to this technology. 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.240 So you guys are saying that we should really speed 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.360 up our processes on this exactly. 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.160 No, you're right. There has been a lot of publicity. 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.480 About that encoding through Laura's bravery and holding up that image, 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:59.719 and Laura's bill addresses exactly the gap that our project 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.919 couldified in terms of the way that facts are treated. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.839 So we know that these images can be generated really easily, 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.240 they're extremely realistic. You can take someone's profile picture off 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.760 their online accounts and turn it into a video of 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.440 them doing sexually explicit things that of course they have 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.160 not done. They haven't consented to it. And we know 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.560 that the harms from sharing those images without consent can 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.320 be just as damaging to the individuals as if they 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.360 were real images, because people can't tell whether they're real 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.760 or not. And so one of our recommendations is that 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.240 Laura's they'll be passed. We're recommending a tiny tweak just 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.920 to make sure that it covers images that it was 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.320 so created with consent, that shared without consent. So if 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.120 you agree with someone that you know you're for fun 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:46.320 or whatever, that you're. 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:47.600 Going to make one of these images, but then they. 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:49.560 Share it without your consent, that should, so we think, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.600 be covered by the bill. But we were really pleased 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.160 that that bill was drawn from the ballot just recently 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.560 and we're hoping it will pass when it comes around. 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.880 And the report also mentions the need to a rat 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.680 kate the practice of virginity testing in New Zealand. Can 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.600 you tell us what that is? And I believe that 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.800 the UN is actually called on governments to ban this 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:10.800 practice altogether already. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:11.160 That's right. 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.520 So virginity testing relates to the myth that you can 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:20.040 tell from an examination whether someone has had sex before. 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:22.400 Now that's not actually true. 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.040 So the UN and. 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.640 Medical practitioners a New Zealand all agree that virginity is 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.840 a social construct, so a construct that's really important to 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.040 some people obviously, but you can't establish via an examination 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:42.120 whether someone is a so called virgin. Unfortunately, there is 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.959 a practice still occurring whereby women and usually very young 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.079 women or children are subjected to a really invasive internal 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.679 exam to check whether they have supposedly had sex or not. 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:59.680 That obviously causes you know, physical harm in mental trauma 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.520 to those people when it's occurring, and it's associated with 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:04.720 a lot of harms kind of after the fact as well. 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.040 So the UN has called you some time ago for 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:12.240 the practice to be eradicated. We know and dotally that 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.080 that practice is occurring in New Zealand. 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.200 We don't know how. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.559 Much it's occurring or in exactly which communities because it's 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.400 obviously not something that people talk about, but we think 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.640 that's enough information to move ahead with in terms of 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:30.520 both banning it legally but also supporting community lead campaigns 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.840 to educate people around the harms and the inaccuracy of 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:37.520 the practice. But what we did with female genital mutilation 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.320 some years ago, likewise, that's a practice that's not widely 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:43.720 practiced in New Zealand and we didn't have good information 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:47.800 about when and how it was being practiced, but the 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.040 fact that it shouldn't be practiced at all was sufficient 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.880 for us to go ahead and again combine a legal 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:59.000 ban with community led education and advocacy to eradicate it. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.560 So when it comes to modernizing our laws, I know 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:04.880 that there has been some recent changes to strength and 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:09.640 protections for victims of crime and including sexual assault and 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.120 things like that include you know, not having to give 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.200 evidence in court, being able to video response or be 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:17.280 in a different room and be a vled or or 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.680 audio visual linked into a court room, for instance. And 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.000 then there are some changes to suppression laws things like that. 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.160 So there has been kind of steps, but would you 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.880 call them baby steps? Should we be taking bigger leaps 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.120 when it comes to this. 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:36.960 It's great to see those steps being taken, and to 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.200 that I would add one of the other recent developments 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.240 that was relevant to our research was the Stalking and 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.439 Harassment Bill it's just passed, and that's relevant to the 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:47.360 deep Facts. 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:49.199 Legislation. 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:52.319 Again, we think it's great that deep facts are covered 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.840 by that bill. So if someone is using sexual explicit 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.160 deep facts to harass and stalk someone, then that's an 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.240 avenue to pursue them. But we still think they should 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.680 be banned altogether without having to demonstrate that someone's talking 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:08.319 or harassing you. Likewise, with the other law changes, and 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.080 we didn't know, Project didn't look into all of the 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.360 aspects like name suppression for example, that were covered by 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.760 the recent changes, but it is always positive to see 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.480 steps being taken. We've recommended another a number of other ones, 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:28.520 including rolling out some trial practices that are already used 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.439 in the sexual violence courts, for example, which were piloted 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.439 an Auckland and FUGA day, rolling those out throughout the country. 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:40.960 Requiring judges to be accredited and trained when overseeing sexual 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:45.760 violence cases so that they're better equipped to handle cross examination. 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:50.200 That's sort of creating greater trauma for victims, which we 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.959 know is a real issue, and better address rate myths 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.640 that come up around what real victims do or don't do, 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.240 which again we know don't really reflect the way that 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:02.520 sexual violence takes place. 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.480 Yeah, and I mean it was it's shocking to know 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.679 that it was only until quite recently, and by recent 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.480 I mean within the last couple of years where you 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.080 could ask a child who had been let's face it, 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.040 raped on the stand whether they liked it or not, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.840 and that was kind of common practice amongst you know, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:27.080 questioning children in these kind of cases. And so those 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:32.320 those kind of things still crop up and you go, huh. 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.000 I can't still happening. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.400 That was a doctor Anahi who authored the consent part 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:41.120 of our report. You know, she obviously is an expert 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.280 on these issues. I am not. And when I read 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.440 that part of the report that children were you know, 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.160 up until very recently able to be questioned about whether 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.520 they had consented to sex. Because of the different ways 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.280 our law was structured around charging sexual violation versus charging 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.360 sexual interaction with the minor, you could get a bigger 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.240 sentence via charging sexual violation, which meant they could be 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:09.280 questioned about consent. That has been fixed for under twelves, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.360 and the latest law, which is a really positive step, 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.080 it's still the case for young people age twelve to fifteen. 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.280 We haven't necessarily recommended fixing that because it's slightly more 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.120 complicated for people of that age, but it does show 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.199 why the consent changes that we're recommending are really important, 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.080 because you can imagine for young people communicating about consent 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:30.480 is pretty challenging. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.559 Primarily that I did not want my family did it. 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.199 I don't want people to look at me and think, oh, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.320 how sad or how hope breaking. 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:45.959 You didn't tell those things. 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.480 If there were so many ways in where I could 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.800 be discredited that I didn't want to put myself through that. 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.360 So we've spoken about before. The report dives into issues 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.760 around underreporting and attrition, of course, and there's a multitude 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.600 of reasons why there is under reporting, and you won't 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.840 understand those reasons until you're actually in the situation. And 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:12.440 even when you're in the situation, every situation is different, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.600 and every person is different, and every person's response is different. 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.240 And I said that I found that the report said 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.280 current options available under the criminal justice system do not 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.360 meet survivors definitions of justice or what they think is 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.520 an appropriate response to the offending. Now, straight off the bat, 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:33.400 I remember, you know, when I'm not picking up any 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.520 story in particular here, but when you say so X 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.680 has been charged with rape, X has been sentenced to 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.840 a year's home detention or something, and then you've got 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.400 the public outraged saying this isn't good enough. And then 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.120 on the flip side, though, and what we hear about 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.240 less often is sometimes victims not wanting the perpetrator to 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.240 go to court and to have You know, there are 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.960 all different kind of intricacies in how people want justice, 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.800 and so was that an interesting part of your report 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.520 and of the research learning about different forms of justice 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.240 and what victims actually want and how it differs across 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:13.040 the spectrum. 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:17.640 Absolutely no, and that was Emily Henderson who led this 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:23.040 part of the research looked really widely at research from 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.920 a number of countries into a number of different situations, 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:27.680 and it was something we talked around quite a bit, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.080 as none of the solutions that we propose or the 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:36.280 adjustments that we propose would fix things for everyone, because, 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.760 as you say, everyone's situation is different, right, there are 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.920 people who want to see longer penalties and jail penalties. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.920 That's something that the research suggests doesn't necessarily reduce offending particularly, 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:50.720 But what we do know is that there are a 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:55.320 number of people who don't come forward with the sexual 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.800 violence stories because they don't want the perpetrator to go 0:15:57.840 --> 0:15:59.880 to prison. You can imagine all kinds of reasons for 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.960 at family relationships obviously, and again it's not to say 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.800 that everyone who has a family relationship with the offender 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.280 doesn't want them to go to prison. It really is 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:14.400 an individual story. We know that Indigenous people generally and 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:21.080 maldi don't find incarceration to necessarily be the most desirable outcome. Again, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.800 not always, but sometimes you know, there's a preference to 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:27.800 deal with things. 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:28.320 In a different way. 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.720 And so one of the recommendations we made is for 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:36.880 alternative pathways that don't say people shouldn't go to jail, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:42.000 but they say we should offer alternative options to encourage 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.720 more people to come forward to address the offending in 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.080 a way that meets people's justice needs. So that might 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.000 be through a restorative justice, which is already available in 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.480 some cases, we're suggesting it be expanded, but also the 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.440 idea of treatment courts, which we currently have for drug 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:03.200 and alcohol offenses. But Emily's suggested that in some cases 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:08.200 sexual offending is quite treatable, and you know, we should 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.240 look at models where instead of going to prison, people 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.399 are sentenced to treatment and then they sort of report 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.640 back to the judge after that treatment's carried out. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:21.840 So again, none of these things is meant. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.479 To be for everyone, but if you offer more options 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.160 along the way, then we might pick up more cases. 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.320 And so at the moment, what are young people taught 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:34.240 about sexual violence, sexual consent, or even to sex in 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:35.199 general in school? 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.639 The problem is we don't know, and so there is 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.640 a curriculum, but school boards consult with their communities around 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.959 what it's taught, and what we understand from our research 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.240 is that it's very patchy across the country from school 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.720 to school what kids are learning, who's delivering their education, 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.840 and therefore what ideas they're coming away with. And there 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.720 have been some recent updates to the curriculum, so again 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.080 that's kind of at a high level what's suggested, but 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.240 again we don't know what will end up being taught 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.240 under those What we do know is what they're missing 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.800 from the curriculum, which is content around what kids are 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:20.880 actually being exposed to. So we're recommending age appropriate content 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.920 around things like pornography, digital harm, you know, particularly the 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.760 kind of harm that can be delivered via AI, via 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.160 the deep fax, issue online companions and. 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:33.880 Things like that. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.879 And there's also not really anything in the curriculum at 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.000 the moment around intimate partner violence, you know, how to 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:46.440 understand whether you're in a violent relationship. So one of 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:48.919 the messages we heard from a few different angles and 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.600 we were talking to people for the project, was a desire, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.280 including from young people, for there to be more consistently 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:55.640 across the education. 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.320 You know, people want to know that their peers are being. 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:01.399 Taught the same things, particularly an environment with this so 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.800 much misogynistic, awful messaging out there now, we need to 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.720 be countering that in some way with real information and 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.200 with positive messaging about healthy relationships. 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.640 It seems wild to me that there still isn't kind 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.280 of a curriculum that's across the board everyone. I kind 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:19.600 of mentioned it in the newsroom because I went through 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.760 sex ed Fath a couple of decades ago, and it 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.520 was a Catholic or girls' school, so it was abstinence. 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.280 But I kind of chatted to a couple of other 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.120 people in the newsroom saying, what was your sex head 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.119 like at school? And they'd be like, yeah, we had 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.960 a couple like this is how to use a condom, 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.960 and then the next lesson would be like fruit and 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.000 veggies like so it was a part of their health 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.520 kind of group. And especially it's wild to me that 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.879 you know, in the last couple of decades it hasn't 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.280 actually moved It doesn't seem like it's moved on. But 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:57.600 at the same time, there is more access to pornography, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:03.959 more access to quite hardcore pornography, and we do know 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:11.000 so much more about relationships and lgbt Q relationships and 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.439 all of this stuff that these kids are having to 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.360 navigate with and they're still, presumably and this is anecdotally 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:23.040 learning about condoms and periods. 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:30.200 Which is also important, but yeah, absolutely, And for a start, 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:32.399 there's so much to cover, and we know that teachers 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.879 have a lot to cover already, and we know that 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.840 some of these issues are sensitive for families, that people 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:40.920 have different beliefs around these issues. 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.239 There's not kind of one single truth about some of 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.960 these things that everybody would agree on. But we don't 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.119 think it's right for kids to get through school, and 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.959 you know, young people to get through school and not 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:58.000 be aware of these issues and will only be aware 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.520 of them through what they're exposed to online, right, because 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.080 you can't really keep young people away. 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:04.160 From these issues. 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:06.840 Almost all of them are online, and we know their 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.200 efforts to address that. It's not that we didn't really 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.719 look at age related measures in our report, but what 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:15.840 we did look at is the fact that the stuff 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.480 is happening anyway. Kids are getting access to this material, 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.920 particularly online, whether it's viewing pornography, whether it's hearing these 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.840 kind of, as I say, misogynistic messages from online influences 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:31.399 about women's place and. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:33.240 What real men do. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.000 And we think it's really really important that the young 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.240 people are given consistent messaging around. 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.240 How to navigate that and how to. 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.359 Have healthy relationships and how to go to if they 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:50.639 are encountering things that make them uncomfortable or if they 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.960 are victims of inject fact sexual abuse, that kind of thing. 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:57.760 It's not something that parents are necessarily equipped to teach 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.560 them about. I say, as a parent of a very 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.720 young person at the moment, but you know, I've learned 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.160 a huge amount through this project that most parents don't 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:07.400 have access to all of the information. 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:07.720 Right. 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.040 Well, thanks so much for joining us, Sarah, Thank you, Chelsea. 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.560 That's it for this episode. Of the Front Page. You 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.480 can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.600 at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.080 produced by Jane Yee and Richard Martin, who is also 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:34.760 our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.439 on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:41.480 in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.