Former Trinity College student who was rape victim says sexual consent workshops are 'bare minimum'

A rape victim and former TCD student says the introduction by the university of mandatory sexual consent workshops are the "bare minimum" needed to address an "enormous" problem in many third-level campuses.

In a landmark decision the university has decided new undergraduates, living in fresher accommodation at Trinity Hall in Rathmines, will be expected to attend the workshops.

From September, students will take classes modelled on "compulsory consent courses", currently in place for first-year students at Oxford and Cambridge universities.

The content of the workshops has yet to be decided, but they will be promoted as "mandatory" by TCD.

If the classes prove successful it could lead to a campus-wide course being implemented.

Megan Nolan was an 18-year-old student at Trinity when she was raped.

She said a sea-change in attitudes among students about what constitutes sexual consent was needed. She stressed compulsory instruction should be the beginning of a "radical refusal of male violence".

She has penned an article for the Guardian in England which has the headline: 'I was raped as a student, and I back sexual consent lessons for freshers.'

Megan reveals in the article that she didn't feel she could report the incident at the time.

She also says that she found out that other women also suffered ordeals.

She doesn't specify if these incident took place at Trinity or elsewhere.

Megan wrote: " As it was, I kept it secret for an unfeasibly long time, by which point my mental health had deteriorated to the extent I hadn’t seen a pre-3pm sky for six months and had long since dropped out.

"Who knows how differently things might have been if I had instinctively felt that I would be supported both by the university and my peers?"