Sexual assault has students on campuses living with shame, embarrassment, and pain, which affect the victims and those around them. This horrendous crime has destroyed many lives and continues to do so, especially when the crimes go unheard. Education is an important part of our society in the world we live in today and is vital for progression. When someone is given a proper education, they receive many additional opportunities that one wouldn’t have other wise and when an individual goes to school they should be able to learn without being harmed in any way. Unfortunately the safety of being on campus is under question as an alarming number of people on campus have reported being sexually assaulted on campus.
Peer pressure, “refers to the influence that peers can have on each other” (http://addictions.about.com/od/howaddictionhappens/f/Peer_Pressure.htm). As we know that peer pressure is divided into two categories, positive and negative peer pressure, I will be focusing on negative peer pressure. At adolescent stage the peer pressure occupy a particularly central role in young people’s lives (Lingren, 19955, p.1). According to Mathews, Grigss and Caine (1999) the need for status and power among peer groups can be understood to be of the causes of violence amongst youth. For example, especially to male learners, it can be argued that they have to wear particular clothes or drink alcohol in order to be accepted in the peer groups.
Since young, we were told by family and friends that sex is a sensitive topic to discuss. But why should it be? By avoiding this topic, we’re reducing the awareness of the general public about sex and its current main issue - sexual violence. According to the World Health Organization, sexual violence is defined as any attempt of sexual acts, unwanted sexual comments or advances directed to a person’s sexuality using coercion. This issue has been one of the most underreported issues around the world and could affect everyone regardless of gender, age, and status.
It depends on how a child is able to control such aggressive impulses. These impulses include fighting other children, bullying others, being temperamental and finding it difficult to control both their physical and psychological behaviour. School life of both the child with aggressive behaviour and his or her victim is affected as a result of aggression (Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley & Roisman, 2010). Within the school environment, children with aggressive behaviour are highly likely to find it difficult to interact appropriately with others within the environment. Aggressive behaviour such as fighting and bullying other children within the environment can easily
Every year, three million students in the United States fall victim to crimes at school and almost two million of these incidents involve violence. In a study conducted in 1995, thirty-four percent of middle school students and twenty percent of high school students admitted that they feared becoming victims of school violence. Seven percent of eighth graders have stayed home from school
School systems are notorious for ignoring symptoms of a potential shooter. “98 percent of the attackers experienced or perceived a major loss prior to the attack, 78 percent of attackers had a history of suicide attempts or suicidal thoughts prior to their attack, 71 percent of attackers felt persecuted, bullied, threatened, attacked, or injured by others prior to the incident (in several cases that harassment was described as long-standing and severe)”(The U.S. School, Winn). If the government follows through on the plan of arming teachers, it would only make the potential shooters feel worse. That in turn could mean more shootings for feeling neglected. Guns on teacher aren’t only threatening to teachers, but it is also threatening to students who experienced abuse.
Sexual assault is an act whereby one physically interacts with another person without being granted the permission to. It is usually committed as a show of power by one person over another where there is already unequal power relationship between the perpetrator and the victim. In South Africa sexual assault among learners has become a main issue in schools. Its actual incidence is difficult to determine as many cases of learners abuse are never reported. Such harassment and abuse which occurs in schools has disturbing consequences for the health of learners.
Children are often sexually assaulted in their houses or places which seem most familiar with them so they feel safe and comfortable there. Child sexual assault can happen at any time that the offenders have access to the child even if other adults are surrounding them. Besides that, parents and caretakers have known, but while the community/society continues to blame the children and their family, the sexual abuser becomes free from obligation to attempt a crime. Why does it
Perceptions of peer pressure depends on how much adolescents have distanced themselves from their parents, which leads to a decrease in emotional closeness and warmth and an increase in parents-adolescents conflicts. Adolescents from such families are at high risk of experiencing psychological and behavioural
Sexual harassment is any unwanted or inappropriate sexual attention which includes touching, comments or gestures. It is also usually one sided and unwanted. It is one of the biggest challenges that we are facing in a number of places. A great number of educational institutions are being affected by this as sexually harassing behaviors can interfere with ones educational opportunities. Sexual harassment works in different ways in educational institutions, it ranges from the student being harassed by a member of the faculty or staff, the faculty or staff being harassed by the student, member of the staff bothering a fellow colleague or lastly a student troubling his mate.