When Chanel Contos published a easy yet effective concern on Instagram in Feb 2021, she firedup a motion that would improve sexual permission education in Australia. Her journey to endingupbeing a leading supporter has brought acrossthecountry modifications and worldwide acknowledgment.
In February 2021, one Instagram post altered the trajectory of Chanel Contos’ life. In it, Contos positioned a easy concern. “Have you or has anybody close to you ever been sexually attacked by somebody who went to an all-boys school in Sydney?” Within 24 hours, 203 individuals – 73 per cent of participants – stated yes. Since then, thousands o individuals from all over the nation have got in touch with Contos to share their stories of sexual attack.
This action was the driver for Contos, then a university trainee, to drive a total overhaul of sexual authorization education in Australia. Following the post, Contos developed a petition calling for more holistic and earlier permission education in Australian schools. The petition amassed 44,000 signatures and resulted in consentaneous arrangement from the Ministers for Education to required permission education in schools Australia-wide, from structure to year 10.
Not stopping there, Contos is now the creator and executive director of Teach UnitedStates Consent, a not-for-profit organisation that intends to remove normalised sexual violence through education, advisory and lobbying for policy modification.
In 2022, Teach UnitedStates Consent hosted a roundtable to goover the criminalisation of stealthing, a term referring to the elimination of a prophylactic without approval. This was participatedin by the lawyers basic, shadow lawyers basic and other stakeholders, and saw 2 states criminalise stealthing in the following months.
In acknowledgment of her advocacy work, Contos got the Australian Human Rights Commission Young People’s Medal in 2021 and in 2022 was provided with the Diana Award. She was likewise justrecently designated by previous Prime Minister Julia Gillard to chair the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership’s Youth Advisory Committee.
Taking on statements
“I was constantly actually enthusiastic about social justice and feminism, however I neverever idea it would be possible to make any sort of profession out of it,” states Contos, who grew up in Sydney and participatedin an all-girls school in the eastern residentialareas. Wanting to break the mould, she atfirst thoughtabout a profession in male-dominated fields like financialinvestment banking or info systems, before following her initial enthusiasm for social justice and moving to London to researchstudy for a master’s degree in education, gender and worldwide advancement.
But her journey of revamping approval education came much previously, in high school. When a speaker checkedout Contos’ year 10 class to provide a talk about sexual attack, it had a big effect on Contos and her goodfriends, triggering them to reevaluate some of their own sexual encounters through a various lens.
A coupleof years lateron, when capturing up with an old school goodfriend, Contos found that a kid who had attacked her as a teenager had brought out a comparable attack on a shared pal a year lateron. This triggered her to concern how things may haveactually been diff erent if she’d comprehended permission earlier; had she reported him, would it have avoided him from doing the exactsame thing to somebody else? Or, if he’d comprehended permission earlier, would he neverever haveactually done it to start with?
Motivated to contact the school principals at her regional kids’ schools, Contos developed the Instagram post, and after seeing how lotsof individuals reacted “yes” to her concern, Contos asked whether individuals would indication a petition to ask schools to integrate permission into sex education earlier. Ninety-eight per cent of participants stated yes and 87 individuals stated they’d offer confidential testaments to Contos to assistance the petition.
“I went to sleep, woke up and it was allover. That’s when the media began getting included and it truly took off ,” remembers Contos, who began sharing the confidential statements on Instagram. “I wear’t believe I even understood the defi nition of overwhelmed till then. It was so unanticipated. I didn’t sleep for 72 hours since I was simply reading testaments and doing media interviews.”
Friends came on board to aid her veterinarian and post the testaments, which were atfirst sent through a Google file. Within weeks, a goodfriend recommended Contos start a site for the statements and Teach UnitedStates Consent was born.
As the stories put in, so too did the characterassassination hazards from readers who declared to have either recognized themselves or individuals they understood as the criminals in the statements. “When evaluating them, we took out names and I idea that was the degree of it,” states Contos. “But I didn’t understand that some individuals have particular task titles or you can match up the year they finished school with the occupation they’re doing now and that narrows it down to 10 individuals.”
Reacting rapidly by pulling the resources and connections of her volunteer network, Contos was able to gottenridof this. They puttogether a group of law trainees who comprehended characterassassination law to aid veterinarian the statements for recognizing details, which quickly stopped the disparagement cases.
Campaigning for Consent
Realising that she and her pals weren’t alone in their experiences of sexual attack and desiring to usage the power of her post to drive modification, Contos developed a government-registered petition calling for more holistic and earlier approval education in Australian schools. This petition setoff a dispute in the NSW Parliament, resulting in consentaneous contract for enhanced approval education in NSW.
Starting with her regional MP, Contos started networking and having discussions about the requirement to required earlier authorization education, and structure relationships upuntil she was in contact with the workplaces of the Ministers for Education and the Prime Minister. “It was all about one-by-one getting that assistance from throughout the political spectrum and asking them to likewise ask their coworkers, or even individuals in other celebrations that they possibly had relationships with, to put aside any political distinctions and simply actually focus on this concern that’s a human rights problem method more than it’s a political problem,” states Contos.
With the Australian National Curriculum up for evaluation, something which just takesplace when every fi ve years, Contos provided at a conference of the Ministers for Education from around the nation. They all concurred to required permission education into the Australian curriculum, start in 2023.
Contos has currently discovered a shift in the method momsanddads and instructors are speaking about the subject consideringthat the required. Stories of negativeness or vulnerability from momsanddads have now altered into those of positivity and optimism. “Now I frequently hear individuals state, ‘they’ve had their veryfirst approval lesson’ or ‘my kid came home, I asked them what they foundout today and they informed me about permission,’” states Contos. “It’s simply truly great to hear the tone modification.”
But Contos’ effect goes beyond the school gates. Weeks after the petition, NSW Police approached Contos to work with them to raise awareness of their casual reporting tool for sexual attack. This permits victims to send their report bymeansof an online type, rather than finishing documentation at the station in individual, where the