It started on Instagram. Now Chanel’s petition is leading a sex education revolution

Chanel Contos was in the back room of the converted London warehouse she lives in, her phone buzzing every few seconds with new social media notifications, when she decided to go public with her story of teenage sexual assault.

Her petition for earlier sex education in schools, which began as an Instagram poll, was just beginning to reveal hundreds of testimonies from former Sydney schoolgirls about sexual assaults they had experienced at the hands of their male peers. And it was showing no signs of slowing.

Chanel Contos has spent most of the last two weeks in her room in London, watching events in Sydney play out on her laptop.Credit: Liliana Zaharia

Running on adrenaline, Ms Contos made the call to put her face to the story. She rang her father first, to give him a heads up. “He was at a party, and I said: ‘I have to tell you something. I’m about to do an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald. By the way, I got sexually assaulted when I was 13. Bye!’ He was like: ‘What?’ It was confronting for dad at first.”

Ms Contos didn’t sleep that night. She stayed up until 11am, working on Sydney time, and had four hours’ rest before doing it all again. Hundreds more Instagram messages were rolling in and television stations were requesting live interviews. “I did that for three or four days until I completely crashed,” the 23-year-old says.

But on the other side of the world, people were hearing her message. Principals across the city wrote to their school communities and praised Ms Contos for her bravery. They announced reviews of their sex education programs, held meetings with police and vowed to do more. “It’s kind of strange – I don’t have any concept of how widely known it is in Sydney,” Ms Contos says. “I do from the traction I get on Instagram, and how many reporters I’m speaking to, but it’s not like I get to see any of this in front of me.”

She hasn’t moved far from her room since her initial decision: confined to her home amid London’s lockdown, she is watching change play out through her laptop. Wentworth MP Dave Sharma is championing her cause, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has reached out for a meeting, and both principals and alumni groups from various Sydney private schools are asking for her input. On Friday, The Association of Independent Schools NSW established a team to support schools teaching respectful relationships and consent.

“The most surprising thing has been how everyone has kept up this narrative of a need for change, and looking to the future,” she says. “I think people are being really open and reflecting that even though this is normal, it’s not necessarily right.”

Ms Contos grew up in Vaucluse, in Sydney’s east, and went to her local primary school before starting at private girls’ school Kambala in year 5. She studied at UNSW from 2016, focusing on international development, began her masters in gender and education at the University College London midway through last year, and has volunteered with an education non-profit for most of that time.

Chanel Contos’ petition for earlier sex education in school has been supported by several school principals and politicians.Credit: Liliana Zaharia

She points to the irony of experiencing an oppressive rape culture in one of the most privileged parts of the world. “It is insane, the specific way I grew up, and I appreciate that. I just hope I can use the opportunities afforded to me to make things better,” she says. “Dealing with my direct context, I feel very equipped to talk about it and be involved in change.”

She’s been buoyed by the support of her father, who owns a business in western Sydney, and two older brothers – one is a guitarist, the other in finance. “They’ve been calling me every day and supporting me, drafting things for me, checking things for me,” Ms Contos says. Her friends in Sydney have sent flowers and given her public relations advice, while her London housemates have taken up her chores.

The past two weeks have been intense; Ms Contos’ list of sexual assault stories stands at about 5000. She now limits how many she reads a day, and is delegating the review process. “When I’d go to my [direct messages] and every second message I opened would be a rape testimony, it was hard, I would end the day shaking.”

But she says she is happy to have made public her experiences, if it means the same might not happen to other people. Her voice – alongside young women Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame - is leading a national reckoning with sexual assault in society. “The fact pretty much everyone in Australia would have talked about what rape or sexual assault is this week, that’s important,” Ms Contos says.

She believes there has been some tangible change: from the people who have told her they have understood, for the first time in their lives, that they experienced sexual assault and it wasn’t their fault; to those who realised they might have been perpetrators themselves. “For every individual [who has had that realisation], that changed them. I think that change will stick,” she says.

“Australians are going to have to keep up this moment, and they’re going to have to keep being angry. It’s exhausting to do that, and I understand that there will be a point where people may switch off. But I really hope there isn’t,” Ms Contos says.

“The principals I met with last week – I would be very surprised if they turned around on their word. I think we’re about to be at that tipping point, where it will soon be more socially acceptable to call out behaviour, than it will to do things that perpetuate rape culture. And once we reach that, I think it will change our society for generations to come.”

National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732

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