How Ethical Is Sexual Assault Research?April 7, 2017 |
Thirty-nine Australian universities will now individually release the findings of a national research project on sexual assault and harassment on campus.
The “Respect. Now. Always.” project, launched in February 2016, has involved two phases:
- an open call for submissions from the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
- an online survey with a randomly selected sample of current university students.
This announcement follows intense criticism from student bodies and sexual assault activists after it was initially announced that the findings for individual universities would not be made public.
The project has also faced considerable controversy over the submission process, which did not receive ethics approval before starting the research. The AHRC said this was because it was not required.
But the commission confirmed it did receive ethics approval for the survey component of the research.
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Tags: bioethics, harm, research, sexual assault, subjects, violence, vulnerable
