Interview transcript
Me: Do you think the media pays enough attention to sexual abuse?
Ms.Gawe:
I think they’re better than they were, I think soap operas do quite a lot, however the biggest issue with sexual abuse is to do with that we dare to speak about is the venerable girls that are out late at night, but it’s not only young girls its young people that are operating late at night that get picked up by people such as: cab drivers and people who own chicken and chip shops as a result of that. Specifically there’s been large group of Asian men, that’s because of the nature of the work therefore when the media blows out some of that out of proportion that’s says are picking up young girls they’ve missed the point, they are young girls who are out at night that are not only whites and the Asian men are the ones that we hear about because the media wants to portray that. So I don’t think they do that much of a good job in that respect but when they are trying to tackle it in things like advertising where they highlight domestic violence and abuse they do a fairly good job.
Me: Do you think this issue in prevalent within our local community?
Ms.Gawe: I think it’s everywhere and just because we don’t hear about it in certain societies doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist there , I think it always had exist , has existed , I’d love to think that there is a timeline for it and it will end at some point, but sadly human nature is such that people like to exert their power and when it comes to exert their power for sexual abuse that’s what it is its exertion of power, it’s not about love or sex it’s just about power so sadly yes we do have a problem with it here .

Me: Now you were in charge of SHEP, can you explain what it is?
Ms Gawe: Yes, SHEP stands for the sexual health education program and it helps young students bring forward any problem they have in mind about sexual health. To have the SHEP room on the MlE it means it’s there all the time also there’s questions that a lot of girls have asked that want answered and it may nothing to do with them but are just curious, so a lot of them are about periods and puberty etc. try to help guide students in the best way I can and if I don’t know the answer then there are links to somewhere that does. So there are a lot of sign posting on there and reliable websites not just google.

Me: SHEP plays a role in helping students who are dealing with any form of abuse as well as sexual abuse, but do you think the school does enough in educating students in sexual abuse?
Ms.Gawe: In order to empower young women, because that what it’s about , it’s about people feeling strong enough to be able to confront or report any kind of abuse we need to make sure we are giving our girls the confidence to be able to do that and so showing them where they can report things that they are going to be safe , because people who are abusers tend to rely on fear.as well as relying on the fear of their victims and so they instil further fear into them by giving them threats such as “if you tell this is going to happen” so victims tend to put up with what is going on when actually the people who are the abusers just don’t want to be