Traumatised teachers reveal schoolboy rape threats and pornography abuse

Kindergarten kids are sharing pornography and molesting classmates while teenage boys threaten female teachers with rape, a disturbing new study shows.

Teachers have revealed widespread sexual harassment from male students, in a disturbing new survey by Collective Shout.

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Kindergarten kids are sharing pornography and molesting classmates while teenage boys threaten female teachers with rape, a disturbing new study shows.

Nearly half of teachers reported sexual harassment from boys in class, in a survey of 1012 teachers conducted by Collective Shout, a charity that campaigns against the sexualisation of children and objectification of girls.

Teenage boys in years 9 and 10 were responsible for most of the harmful sexual behaviours, Collective Shout warns in its first report on the sexual harassment of teachers.

Teachers said male students had propositioned them for sex, threatened them with rape, mimicked sex acts, asked for nude photos or sexually moaned, groaned or grunted at them in class.

But the report found children as young as five, from kindergarten to year 3, were exhibiting the same behaviours.

Teachers reported that children in year 2 had been caught accessing and sharing pornographic content through smartphones, laptops and over social media.

Girls in years 5 and 6 were being coerced into sending sexual images to boys in class.

Collective Shout director Melinda Tankard Reist said: “Schools have become sites of abuse. The safety of teachers and female students is significantly compromised. The stories I’ve been told by female teachers and students this year are the worst I’ve heard in more than a decade of engagement with public and private schools.’’

Parenting author and educator Maggie Dent, who co-published the report, called on educational authorities to provide teachers and schools with “clear steps they can follow to prevent and deal with sexual harassment’’.

She said some of the behaviour was criminal and could not be dismissed as “boys will be boys’’.

“I would urge parents and other caring adults in our kids’ lives to have awkward conversations with their kids, and not just expect schools to be responsible for addressing this behaviour from some boys,’’ she said.

“This needs to be a whole community response.’’

The report reveals female teachers are being subjected to routine sexual harassment.

“They were propositioned, threatened with rape, subjected to sexist slurs and mimicking of sex acts seen in porn, and called the ‘c’ word,’’ it states.

“While trying to just do their jobs, they were sexually moaned, groaned and grunted at, asked for nudes and intimidated. Many said they did not feel safe at work.’’

The report reveals teachers are witnessing “widespread harmful sexual behaviours by male students directed at female students’’.

“While much of the behaviour was exhibited by boys in years 9 and 10, a number of teachers reported children in kindergarten displaying inappropriate sexual behaviours towards other children and even toward teacher.

“Teachers expressed despair with the rapid rise of sexualised behaviours, which they attributed to early exposure to pornography, the malign influence of social media influencers such as Andrew Tate, and broader societal sexist attitudes.

“They referred to disclosures by girls in years 5 and 6 (of being) coerced into sending sexual images, and instances of children as young as year 2 accessing and sharing pornographic content through personal devices or social media.’’

Federal, state and territory education ministers only agreed this year to a national ban on the use of smartphones in schools.

Of 1012 teachers surveyed, 47 per cent had suffered sexual harassment at school and 80 per cent reported an increase in sexualised behaviours from students. Twenty per cent said a colleague had sexually harassed them at school.

Boys were blamed for 97 per cent of sexual harassment against female teachers and classmates.