News / sexual assault
Over 1,000 kits given out at the University of Bristol to empower sexual assault survivors
Five in six women and four in five men who are raped do not report their assault to police.
This is despite the fact that one in four women and one in eighteen men have been sexually assaulted or raped.
On Monday, volunteers from a recently launched non-profit called enough. handed out over 1,000 rape kits to students at the University of Bristol.
is needed now More than ever
Co-founded by Katie White, a former consultant, and Tom Allchurch, an entrepreneur, Enough was founded in 2024 to “help create a world without rape“.
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Without reporting, it can be hard to get a medical examination to collect evidence of a sexual assault.
After receiving advice from ‘leading professionals and institutions’, Enough have created self-testing rape kits.
If someone suspects they have been sexually assaulted, they can swab themselves using an enough. kit and then post it to Enough’s lab partner for testing.
They can also report what happened on a private Enough encrypted accounted.
The report and tested sample can be passed onto the police if the sender requests it.
The non-profit hopes to hand out 5,000 kits by the end of the week.
In 2021, a survey by the University of Bristol Students’ Union found that 59 per cent of respondents had experienced sexual harassment and 37 per cent had experienced sexual assault.
The University of Bristol is the first university campus Enough have visited although they have recently launched a crowdfunder to enable them to visit other institutions.
Katie White, Enough co-founder, said:
“We have been at Bristol talking to students and survivors about what they want for over a year.
“We’ve also taken advice from leading forensic experts, the police, and psychologists to make sure that what we are doing is safe and trauma informed”
“Enough is the service that students asked for – and its clearly a service they really want to use. Why would anyone want to stop that?”
“Enough is not for criminal prosecution. Anyone who wants to report to the police should go there first.”
Free Enough kits can be found in several businesses often frequented by Bristol students, including Boston Tea Party on Park Street and Burra in Redland.
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