Danielle Villafana opens up about heartbreaking sexual assault at age 14

Four years ago, Danielle Villafana contemplated suicide after a sexual assault aged 14 left her ashamed and traumatised. Today she is pushing for legal and education reforms to better support sexual violence victims.

When Danielle Villafana was sexually assaulted on a train at 14, she spent months trying to deal with it on her own.

But, like so many survivors of sexual violence, the trauma became too much to bear. At only 14, the once-bright teenage girl contemplated suicide.

“One night I ended up calling Kids Helpline because I was completely ready to end it all,” the high school student said.

“I just couldn’t handle the burden of that trauma and I couldn’t cope with living like that.

“Because the thing is, his life goes on, but your body never forgets what happened to you.”

Today, Dani is in her final year of Fort Street High School and studying for her HSC. She has drawn strength from her own terrifying experience and joined a tide of teenagers calling for improved and comprehensive sex and ­relationship education.

She has backed The Saturday and Sunday Telegraphs’ campaign calling for reform of consent laws, a pilot of specialised sex assault courts and statewide audit of consent education.

Sexual assault survivor Danielle Villafana shares her journey from trauma to advocacy. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

In mid-2018, Dani was travelling on a train through Sydney when someone she knew — also a teenager — sexually ­assaulted her. She said she froze, a response many victims experience during sexual assaults, and spent the next few months suffering in silence.

“I froze and I felt what was the point of telling other people?” the now 17-year-old said.

“Because what if they just went back and said: ‘Well, why didn‘t you do anything?’

“And that’s ­exactly what happened.”

Around the same time, Saxon Mullins’s case was dominating the news cycle.

Ms Mullins, now a director at Rape and Sexual ­Assault Research and Advocacy (RASARA), alleged Luke Lazarus raped her in an alleyway behind a Kings Cross nightclub in 2013. Lazarus, a then-21-year-old whose father owned the nightclub, was charged with sexual assault.

But after two trials and two appeals, he was let off. The case boiled down to the complex issue of consent, with a judge finding that while Ms Mullins knew she was not consenting, Lazarus had reasonable grounds to believe she was.

The case sparked a ­review of NSW’s consent laws, with the state government yet to reveal publicly how it will respond.

Dani remembers watching Ms Mullins’s case and thinking: “What chance do I have if Saxon can’t get ­justice?

Saxon Mullins is a survivor of sexual assault and wants consent laws to change. Picture: Tim Hunter

“In many ways, what happened to her was the classic example of how people characterise rape and assaults in their head,” said Dani, who migrated from the Philippines as a baby.

“And she had (CCTV), she had gone to the hospital, she did everything right, and they still went back and acquitted him.

“And so, if that’s how they treated someone with the privilege that she had, but also with the type of case she had, then how are people going to treat me?

“And that’s very much the attitude I took into it.”

Dani has spoken about her sexual assault as part of her advocacy, which has seen her address rallies in front of thousands of ­people. But she has seldom shared how close she came to taking her own life.

“I was having flashbacks, I was having panic attacks, and I had no way to explain what was happening to me or to other people,” she said.

“And so the story that I don’t often tell people is that I didn’t think I would be able to make it out.

“I called Kids Helpline that night and I told them what had happened and I very much think if it weren’t for that phone call, I wouldn’t be here.

“I think there’s a difference between wanting to die and not wanting to live the same way that you currently are, and a lot of survivors end up stuck in that state. That’s where I ended up and that’s where a lot of us are.”

The next day Dani broke down in tears at school and confided in a teacher.

She said she didn’t want to report it to the police but teachers have a mandatory obligation to report children at risk of significant harm. Within a few weeks, she was giving a statement to a Child Abuse Squad ­detective in Parramatta. It is the first and only time she has detailed her assault from beginning to end.

After being terrified of involving the police initi­ally, Dani decided she did want to progress with the investigation.

She didn’t want her perpetrator to face jail but she wanted him to comprehend the impact of his behaviour, through counselling or a behavioural change program. After speaking with the teenage boy and seeking an apprehended violence order to protect Dani, the police decided not to press charges.

It is well documented now that only a fraction of sexual assaults reported to NSW Police make it to court, let alone lead to a conviction.

According to the NSW Law Reform Commission, less than 10 per cent of all child and adult sexual assault incidents reported in 2019 led to finalised charges. (That’s after cases involving charges withdrawn, a common occurrence in sexual violence matters).

That is compared against the one in five Australian women who have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics

The trauma for Dani lingered long after the case was closed. She developed a “plethora of mental health issues”, was hospitalised for a month with anorexia and continues to see a counsellor. But in the past several months she has reclaimed her story. She helped set up Youth Survivors For Justice, a collective of young people calling for reformed consent laws and improved consent education.

“I think for me, fighting for change is a way of reclaiming my own story and my own agency,” she said.

“And saying what happened to me was not OK and I’m going to fight so it doesn’t happen to other people. It’s been a massive part of me being able to heal from this.”

Chanel Contos started a petition about sexual consent. Picture: Hollie Adams

Exactly what students are taught at school about healthy relationships and sex was thrust into the spotlight after former Kambala student Chanel Contos started a hugely popular petition. It was popular for the wrong reasons — thousands of teenagers detailed their experiences of sexual harassment and violence, all the while calling for an earlier and a more comprehensive sex education.

As a current high school student, Dani said consent education needs to be holistic, regardless of which school you attended.

She said a very narrow understanding of consent was currently taught with no reflection of affirmative or enthusiastic consent.

“You are taught that consent means that she doesn‘t say: ‘No’ or push you away or says: ‘Get out’,” she said.

“And you’re also often not taught that being in a relationship doesn’t equate consent, that even if you’re dating, you don’t have to be into it and you don’t have to want things all the time.

“So very much we need a more holistic understanding of consent.

“And what that also means that we need a broader understanding of what assault looks like and what control looks like.”

She also pointed out that PDHPE, where relationship and sex education is predominantly taught, was an elective subject from Year 10, when most students were 16.

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