Testimony features sexual harassment, groping, inappropriate touching and forced penetration
Rape culture exists in more than 1,600 primary schools in the UK and Ireland, an investigation by a campaign group has found.
The ‘Everyone’s Invited’ list names 1,664 primary schools where pupils aged five to 11 have submitted anonymous testimonies alleging rape culture.
This includes experiences of sexual harassment, groping, inappropriate touching and forced penetration during primary school.
The report claimed that almost half of schoolchildren under seven are showing signs of misogynistic behaviour, and that “misogynistic rhetoric and harmful gender norms” are ingrained from as early as nursery.
It also found that more than 60 percent of teachers reported that children under nine had been exposed to pornography.
‘SMASHED MY HEAD AGAINST SINK’
Several testimonies from pupils are included in the report.
One read: “When I was five, another five-year-old boy at primary school started calling me beautiful and sexy (which I didn’t even know what it meant at the time).
“One day, he followed me into the toilets and smashed my head against the sink.
“I told my mum, and the school phoned her to tell her we were ‘just playing’ and said they would keep an eye on him.
“One day, he called me sexy then pushed me into the toilets again and tried to push my head down a toilet while grabbing me.
“I told a teacher after and they put me and the boy in the same room together. A teacher tried to downplay it, and say it wasn’t that bad (basically gaslighting a six-year-old for the sake of keeping their reputation).
“The boy wasn’t expelled. I left school, and learnt that he did it to another girl after I had left.”
‘I WAS TOLD A BOY WOULD LICK MY VAGINA’
Another read: “When I was 10, a boy told me one of the boys was going to lick my vagina. A boy said they would pay another boy £20 to rape me. I didn’t know what rape meant.
“I didn’t tell anyone. One of the boys in my year told their mum, who told mine. I went in for a meeting with the headteacher. She told me, ‘As women, we have to accept what men say to us’.”
The charity, which is dedicated to eradicating rape culture, has called for relationship and sex education to begin in nursery or reception.
‘Challenging and uncomfortable’
It was founded in June 2020 by Soma Sara, a former private school pupil and sex abuse survivor, and has previously exposed the issue of sexual abuse in schools and colleges.
The charity’s report acknowledged that primary school teachers often faced “challenging and uncomfortable situations within the classroom” but found that 80 per cent of those surveyed felt ill-equipped to address these issues.
It added: “Many are not trained beyond the legal minimum in safeguarding, which leaves them ill-equipped to respond to disclosures of sexual violence.”
A recent report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council found that child sexual abuse and exploitation had increased by 400 per cent from 2013 to 2024.
More than half of the alleged offenders in cases of sexual violence were children themselves, it added.
The report concluded that rape culture was “endemic” in primary schools.
It emphasised the role of the online world in the increase of violence, saying phones gave children access “to the most extreme content possible with a click of the finger.”
