Chanel Contos: My target is to eradicate normalised sexual violence

Chanel Contos has emerged as a powerful voice for her generation, championing the cause of sexual consent education in Australia. Source: SBS / SBS Greek

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Chanel Contos, who is a household name in Australia and beyond by now, is continuing campaigning tirelessly towards eradicating sexual violence and promoting sex and gender equality.

She started her initiative in social media and soon evolved to make mandated consent education a political priority.

In order to achieve this, she campaigns tirelessly and works closely with politicians from across the political spectrum, including prime ministers.

In a previous interview with us (SBS Greek), Chanel elaborated on her movement and on her book “Consent laid Bare”.

Recently she visited our studio and we had an in depth interview about her campaign.

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“My target is to eradicate normalised sexual violence, and this idea of normalisation is really important in this movement, because this sector is very big, this problem is very large. Sexual violence is something that happens to women in all corners of the globe to different extents and in very different ways”, Ms Contos said during our interview.

Specifically for Australia, she said that what we have here is a type of sexual violence that “occurs because of a lack of education, because of ignorance, because of a entitlement to other peoples bodies ”.

“That is what I am really trying to change, types of sexual violence perpetrated because of a lack of education rather than intent or malice”, Ms Contos said.

“My whole campaign is about education. Education and learning are so important. But, in order to truly learn, you also have to unlearn. My message to people would be to sit and reflect on things that they may have been taught, or things they think are correct and think about how may this change. What of this is good. What of this do I want to teach the next generation. And what of this is potentially oppressive against women for no reason and I can change it”.

During the interview Ms Contos elaborated on her other interests in life (new university course, music, reading, movies), including visits to Greece and learning of the Greek language.

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