‘Girls feel betrayed’: Dani survived sexual assault by a boy at 14, she says girls’ education is now at stake

Dani Villafana has a word for how schoolgirls are feeling as they reflect on their sexual maltreatment by school-aged peers and see headlines about the alleged rape of others their age: “Betrayed”.

She has met many who have had their school experience or education disrupted by harm from fellow students, and has a very personal stake in doing better by girls around the country. At age 14, Villafana was playing oboe and clarinet at an interschool music program when she met the 14 year-old boy who coerced and sexually assaulted her, causing extensive trauma.

As federal politicians fight over whether respectful relationships education is pushing “anti-boy ideologies” – as claimed by Nationals leader Matt Canavan – Villafana and others say girls are being failed by a lack of any systematic response to reports of sexual harm by peers, and it is jeopardising their education.

It was only due to the care of her principal that she was able to get hers back on track after the trauma of sexual assault.

What started for her as “a teenage friendly relationship” with the boy “very quickly turned to something that ended up being quite coercive and violent”, says Villafana, now 22. “He said if you tell anyone, then I’ll hurt myself; I’ll use self harm if you report me.”

Like 93 per cent of Australian students, Villafana attended a co-educational school. After the incident, she began experiencing what she now knows was PTSD: anxiety attacks, sleeplessness and nightmares, frightening ideation.

“I was thinking about what happened to me all the time,” she says. “I would be on the train to school or in class, and instead of focusing, I was thinking about that act of violence,” she says.

“It made it hard for me to continue [attending school]; if a misogynistic joke was made in class, everyone would laugh and I would break down about it and no one knew why.”

As the nation grapples with a string of headlines about gendered violence towards schoolgirls, and two groups of three schoolboys go through the court system for alleged gang rapes, seeing alleged sexual violence against schoolgirls come and go in the news cycle – prompting outrage but no national, school-based service response for girls – has produced a widespread sense of betrayal, says Villafana.

Even after 2021’s national Teach Us Consent campaign and hundreds of publicly available testimonies of sexual abuse in secondary school contexts – and the subsequent introduction of consent education – she is among survivor advocates amazed that girls are not being included in discussions about what is happening to them in Australian school environments, and what they need.

“The response girls receive [at their schools] after sexual violence is completely case-by-case and luck of the draw,” says Villafana, who was recently invited to consult with St Andrews Cathedral College, Sydney, in creating new respectful relationships strategies after the murder of teacher’s assistant Lilie James.

Unlike in universities, “there is no standardised schools code of conduct to ensure schools are equipped to respond to students’ reports and provide what is needed to ensure every young person is supported to continue accessing their education”.

“It is a gaping hole in Australia. As soon as mandatory reporting ends we don’t follow up with that young person, no system requires it: seeing what those young girls experience – are they finishing year 12, do they get bullied [for disclosing] – is something we’re not even keeping track of.”

A 2024 YouGov study of 506 high school girls, aged 14 to 18, nationally found one-in-three reported manosphere-influenced behaviour among their peers was having a negative impact on them.

It found 21 per cent surveyed experienced sexual abuse by their peers, 42 per cent said the behaviours of boys around them were directly influenced by influencers, the likes of Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are now in custody. More than one in three girls (36 per cent) participated less in class as a result and 18 per cent said their academic performance was suffering.

As a member of the expert advisory committee to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s 2024 inquiry into Justice Responses to Sexual Violence, Villafana made a detailed submission and six recommendations about what is required to ensure consistent responses to sexual violence in secondary school communities.

Although she had direct access to commissioners, the recommendations were ignored. “It was something the commissioners didn’t want to hear about or engage with,” she says. “It was quite a disappointing experience.”

Having fought since age 16 for better responses to girls (and boys) who report peer-to-peer abuse with the group she founded, Youth Against Sexual Violence, Villafana, the End Rape on Campus Australia founder Sharna Bremner and the advocacy group Fair Agenda will launch a national campaign for the university code of conduct model to be extended to secondary schools.

Villafana will use international research she compiled on a recent Churchill Fellowship investigating legal and community responses to peer-on-peer sexual violence within secondary school communities to inform the campaign.

Sharna Bremner said inadequate responses to peer-on-peer sexual violence had caused many young women to drop out of university before the national code of conduct was created (and came into effect in January). At school, sexual abuse can cause school refusal, absenteeism, disengagement from learning and distrust of adults and school as safe, she says.

“We need a standardised response so it’s not a postcode lottery, which it currently is,” she says. “To this point, nobody has been listening to the voices of young women and girls; they have been calling for it.”

”Every kid across the country should be able to expect a minimum standard of response if they make a disclosure, and that should enable them to continue their education free from the fear of violence,” Bremner says.

Monash University education researcher Dr Stephanie Westcott published research in August based on survey data from more than 2600 teachers, which found 78 per cent reported observing or experiencing gendered violence in schools.

Government survey data about attitudes to school also showed girls are saying they don’t feel safe, she said: “They are not enjoying school and are not as connected at school; boys are doing significantly better and that’s why comments like Matt Canavan’s are so harmful.”

“If I had a daughter I would be seriously considering a single-sex school because the stories coming out every day are horrific: what’s at stake here is girls’ education in Australia. Instead, we’re prioritising making sure boys don’t feel victimised by their own behaviour, or by accountability.”

Westcott said it was not possible to claim Australia is working towards preventing gendered violence without protecting girls in schools. “We need to stop placating people who are offended by protecting girls and looking after girls,” she said.

“It is reckless and harmful. I feel very troubled for girls in Australia, their right to eduction – and I’m shocked to say that but it’s true, I’m very concerned about that.”

Bianca Sciessere, co-founder of The Big Sister Experience, which runs girls school workshops, said it was “extremely widespread” that female students didn’t feel safe to walk down school halls.

“What chance do our young female students have if the adult women in the room are feeling intimidated and are not knowing how to intervene or stop this behaviour,” she said.

“There’s work to be done for the boys, and there’s work to be done … supporting the girls with the reality that they are facing in schools and communities where they are feeling unsafe, and where the statistics are saying that they are unsafe.”

After the assault, and as a result of mandatory reporting, Villafana was obliged to speak with police. “I had told the teacher in the hope that I might receive help or support. Instead, I was subjected to a justice process that was in some ways more traumatic than what had happened to me,” she told the ALRC inquiry.

“I didn’t want to detail the worst experiences of my life to strangers … I didn’t want to go through a court process. I wanted all of this to be over … Police asked me what I was wearing, and how long my skirt was. They made me feel stupid and like I was making a big deal out of nothing.”

Police called Villafana at school months later and told her they had spoken to the boy’s family solicitor after which they decided not to press charges.

“It is important if boys have mental health problems they get supported, but what about the impact of that behaviour on the peers they are interacting with?” she says.

Villafana, now a geography student in Sydney and a research associate at Deakin University, continues to be grateful to her principal for personally ensuring she returned to wellbeing at school. Failing to provide this for all girls who live through what she did would be an “institutional failing”.