Sexual harassed DD6 in unisex toilet

[LittleCoffeePot]

I initially posted this using a throwaway account in AIBU for traffic but it got derailed accusing me of lying and being obsessed with toilets(?) and my account deleted. This is my main account so I'm hoping this wont be deleted as I genuinely need help and advice.

Monday night, my DD6 comes and tells me that the week before, when using some unisex toilets for a different classroom at school that she wasn't familiar with, she was struggling to lock the door and a boy offered to hold the door. These unisex toilets are unsupervised. While using the toilet, the boy gathered a group of other boys and they opened the door twice to all laugh at her while she was on the toilet. She was in floods of tears telling me this and now doesn't want to use the toilet at school. She said she told a teacher or TA but they didn't do anything.

Obviously I immediately brought this up with the school and they have 'investigated'. They implied that it was my daughter's fault for not being able to lock the door and that from now on she's going to be accompanied by an adult to the toilet. They said the boy's mother has been told but they're 'working on' an apology from him. They're also 'investigating' the member of staff who was told but did nothing.

I had no idea that the school even had unisex toilets as the ones I'd seen in Early Years were sexed. I'm horrified that the unisex toilets for young children are unmonitored and that the school has failed my daughter in allowing this to happen.

I've escalated the issue with the head but am expecting to be brushed off with a 'well we've sorted it now' as they've informed me that unisex toilets are apparently the norm. How do I go beyond the school? Who do I alert to this safeguarding failure?

Thanks

So sorry for your daughter op. Agree with previous posters on two counts which I think are important to success here.

Firstly follow the school complaints procedure to the letter and do not give in until they have actively done something to safeguard this happening to other little girls. Treating the victim differently after the event is not appropriate and you need to escalate it at every level; expect them to close ranks.

Secondly, if your daughter is Sen this absolutely is relevant and I would include it in communications, but make sure she is not singled out as they should be protecting all children with Sen, including the boys who may struggle with boundaries, or impulse control (not saying what they did was right, but Sen would be even more of a reason not to put the boys or girls in this situation to protect them both. Id also remind the school that unusual sexually motivated behaviour is a safeguarding concern: either they view his behaviour as unusual and need to escalate it, or it's not unusual and they need to protect girls from the inevitable.

Every interaction follow up with an email. Create a papertrail, summary of meetings etc. insist on meeting with the senco to help your daughter in the aftermath.

I'm afraid you have to be like a dog with a bone.

Also make sure your daughter has had the opportunity to explain to you exactly what happened in her own words. Children actually find reporting sexual abuse really difficult as they often don't have the language and adults teach them inadvertently that we 'must not talk about certain things'. Don't ask leading questions, but as it happened with no witnesses I'd want to be sure I knew exactly what happened.

As for unisex toilets being common practice, I've worked in education for years and generally that only happens in year r where ratios are high. Good luck

your thread was deleted because people who want to get rid of single sex spaces don’t want to have to face evidence of how the loss of them harms women and girls.

A bank of stalls wouldn't be a but a single toilet that also serves as the accessible toilet would. One child going off to the toilet wouldn't be supervised. There shouldn't be groups of children unsupervised out of the classroom.

OP as part of school safeguarding training there are examples of what is considered normal and, for want of a better word, abnormal sexual behaviour at different ages. Lots of things children do in infants because they don't know better that is unacceptable by juniors. The age and development stage of children is very relevant. You might find it useful to look up a similar document. I don't doubt this was unpleasant for your daughter but I would imagine it was more likely general misbehaviour than sexually motivated.

@LittleCoffeePot THIS...Absolutely do contact MNHQ mods to let them know you are genuine, and not a ''Previously banned poster''...they will be able to see from your online activity on MN if you are likely genuine {or not}.

I assume it was a disabled toilet, as they usually are unisex.

You are focusing on the wrong issue here.

The issue isn’t that there is a unisex toilet.

The issue is the behaviour of the boy and his friends and what school is doing about it.

This absolutely needs to be nipped in the bud and if I was in charge of that school I would come down extra hard, to make them see just how wrong their behaviour was.

Yes I thought OP said Year 6 at first. Infants are different - though with the average age of children getting phones now is 7 (!) (an answer on The Wheel the other night) I would have thought this could potentially lead to problems. There are already documented problems in secondary and primary schools and there are common issues to all.

My two year old slapped me in the face yesterday. Should I report him to the police for assault? Afterall, if dh did that to me that would be abuse right? So, in your words 'why is it different when it's children'?

Of course not. The age of criminal responsibility in this country is 10. No one has suggested reporting the boys in the OP's story to the police.

But 6 year old children do understand that it's possible to shame and humiliate another child sexually, even if they can't articulate those feelings. The OP's DD will have understood that - again, she might be unable to articulate it - which is why she's so upset about it.

Perhaps you were lucky enough as a child never to have been on the receiving end of boys' sexual aggression.

👏👏👏

Yes, do have a word with MNHQ about the account.

The school's response is inadequate. Agree that you should make an appointment with the Head and escalate this.

Highly likely. This site is crawling with MRAs/TRAs.

The minimising of female experience and 'oh it's not as bad as that really' starts early, doesn't it?

It has to, because concurrently we have to learn to sympathise with and prioritise the boys while minimising and dismissing the girls.

That said, the attempts to suggest that its impossible for a child to commit a sexual assault are potentially harmful to the alleged bullies as well as the victim.

These are all children and ALL require to be safeguarded by the school.

I think it's actually worse for a child than for an adult because an adult can take legal advice, go to the police, go to HR, and decide not to go back to where the perpetrators are. A child is helpless and has to go back to the school in the morning.

Yes, and a good teacher/safeguarding lead will ask what is behind the behaviour, too.

Consent and boundaries start very very young. Children need to be taught to respect others and to protect their own.

Sexual harassment is about power. My sister and her assailant were both seven. Mine would have been about 10.

Have your DD's back on this and keep on escalating. That she has rights over her own body is a far more important lesson for her than anything she'll ever learn in the classroom.

If anyone should be escorted to and from the loo, it should be the boy.

He needs to be taught to respect girls. It starts with "hey, look at Josie's fanny while she has a wee" and ends with gang rape, via an escalation path that involves distributing indecent images and sexual assault. This loo incident is on a continuum of entitled male behaviour towards women's bodies, and that's part of why you're absolutely on point calling it sexual harassment.

Yes, it does. And from my own experience, and that of family members, and that of friends' children, I know that little boys' sexual harassment of girls can start young. In fact, we already have a thread on the Sunday Times story about sibling sex abuse: one of the women in the article describes being sexually abused by her three-years older brother when she was about six or seven.

Also from my experience, teachers are very keen to minimise sexual assault of girls by boys, whether it happens in primary school or secondary school. Possibly because it's too uncomfortable to confront and deal with. But more likely because it's part of a pattern in which girls' and women's experiences of sexual assault are not taken seriously, and in which girls and women are thought to have invited it.

You do realise that little boys of this age have may well have seen hardcore porn don't you?

Yes this. Why are posters trying to minimise this dreadful incident? Your poor daughter OP.

I am so not getting why people think a boy opening a door on a girl while she has her pants down is not being sexually harrased. I mean it wouldn't be funny for him opening the door if she was standing there fully clothed would it.

I would contact the school's safe guarding and the school head and if not happy then the school board. Your poor daughter.
The thing is - kids don't have certain feelings until a situation arises where they get them for the first time - her shame, humiliation, vulnerability and fear have now been created thanks to these idiots and she might go back to that place when triggered.

Lol. Reception boys were "helping" my reception boy in the toilet, holding doors but also looking in. Immediately classified as sexual harassment and dealt with instantly and here I have pages of people arguing that something done in toilets as a planned action isn't. 😂

Get over yourselves and the constant minimising of what happens to girls because your son might be called out someday. 🙄

OP I'd be on it with the board of governors and reporting to ofsted if you are not happy with how the head handles it.

OP I would be fucking FUMING. Be as loud as you can and take his as far as you can.

Had a phone call with the deputy head instead of head. They seemed to think it was this Monday instead of last Monday and DD is now not sure when it happened.

They said the member of staff 'dealt with it' at the time but didn't relay it back to her teacher who didn't relay it to me or escalate it any further. Obviously I said this was unacceptable and I wanted their full investigation in writing and a meeting with the head with a view to a formal complaint.

They said this occurred as they let children use this toilet alone in the corridor with the classroom door open unsupervised during class. The boys should not have been in the hallway, but no explanation as to why they were there. Very much a 'yes its a failure but we promise it wont happen again'. Not good enough.

Still no apology from the boy/boys.

Sexual harassment can be carried out with no sexual motive. It can be done to humiliate and to gain power. The conduct is inherently sexual in nature because these boys and this poor girl are all old enough to understand the concept of genitalia being private and exposure of them being shameful. This boy weaponised this girl's shame about her uncovered vulva to gain social status with the other boys and power over her. That all involved are prepubescent is irrelevant. This is male pattern abuse of a girl and follows the sexual humiliation pattern of abuse.