Child sex abuse survivor Tara Dawes says education could have prevented her abuse
The former Woodville High student was just 13 when she became pregnant after being sexually abused by a man who groomed her via social media.
North & North East
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A child sex abuse survivor and loving young mum has made calls for current public school curriculums to teach about coercion and abuse earlier as her first encounter at 16 was too little too late.
Tara Dawes, now 22, was 13 when she was sexually abused and fell pregnant after she was groomed online and in person by 19-year-old Antoni Nduwimana.
Ms Dawes, who has granted The Advertiser consent to identify her, said her first interaction with health and sexual education curriculum was in year 10 at Woodville High School – two years after she gave birth to her son.
“If I had known, if I was educated, the outcome would have been different,” Ms Dawes said.
“I wouldn’t have taken his advances, I would have said ‘look you’re 19, I’m 13, this is not okay’ or known how to act in a situation where I was being coerced.
“Getting sex education in year ten, everyone had already had sex, I had a whole child, it was just pointless.”
Ms Dawes was months into year 8 when she became the victim of Nduwimana, who coerced her into participating in a sexual relationship, that continued after the birth of her son.
Nduwimana was convicted and given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to one count of sexual intercourse with a person under 14, and two counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under 17.
Ms Dawes said that the content of the class also let her down and was “shocked” at the subject matter – or lack thereof.
“We were never really taught about sexual coercion or statutory rape which was quite shocking,” Ms Dawes said
“I’m like ‘why are we not talking about this’ all we are talking about is teen pregnancies, but not talking about how sometimes it can get to that point through manipulation and things like that.”
Ms Dawes said parents and children needed further education – despite “uncomfortable” subject matter – as knowledge was important to keeping safe.
“I need people to really know how important this is, because I can’t go around saving everyone,” she said.
“I know it’s possible (to be abused), because it happened to me, and we are going to make sure that we’re not going to repeat that cycle.”
“We can’t stop children having sex, but we can give them the tools and education to be safe.”
A Department for Education spokeswoman said consent education had been part of the SA curriculum since 2008 and was last updated in 2021.
The spokeswoman said SA had a world-leading child safety and respectful relationship curriculum for children and young people aged 3 to year 12 mandated in all schools.
“The content in this curriculum is constantly being reviewed to ensure it reflects contemporary issues,” she said.
On Friday, Premier Peter Malinauskas and Education Minister Blair Boyer announced an update to the curriculum strengthening content, including recognising and reporting abuse, respectful relationships, consent, domestic and family violence, and online safety.
South Australia recently received almost $6m from the federal government to further strengthen consent and respectful relationships education in schools.
The spokeswoman said the department was using its share of the funding to counter content from the likes of Andrew Tate.
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