AN ACADEMIC WHO helped to deliver a strategy to prevent sexual harassment and bullying in the military has said treating Defence Forces as bystanders empowers all ranks to confront toxic behaviour.
The strategy, known as Sexual Ethics and Responsible Relationships training, which is a joint military and academic training initiative to deal with the fallout from a damning report into sexual abuse and harassment in the Irish Defence Forces has received an award.
The Independent Review Group (IRG) study released in March of last year published allegations of bullying and toxic behaviours inside the military.
The IRG, chaired by Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon, made a number of recommendations including specific training for members of the Defence Forces.
The organisation subsequently rolled out mandatory Sexual Ethics and Responsible Relationship (SERR) workshops in cooperation with Professor Louise Crowley of University College Cork and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
The four-hour seminars, held at every military facility in the country over a nine-month period, were delivered by Crowley who used her ongoing consent training for students as a guide.
The project was honoured last night in UCC with Crowley and two officers – Lieutenant Commander Aoife Campbell and Lieutenant Colonel Cathal Keohane – receiving the accolade.
Campbell, who is based at the Naval Base on Haulbowline in Cork Harbour said the project was a key component of a strategy “to tackle cultural change” in the Defence Forces.
She was chair of a sub group which developed a plan to deliver the workshop to personnel to “enforce a positive workplace culture”.
“If one person doesn’t have dignity and respect in the workplace that’s important and an issue of concern for the Defence Forces – even it is one or 20 or no matter how many people, it is still important that everyone, regardless of rank or gender, that you have dignity and respect in the workplace.
“I am really proud of the workshop and I am especially proud of the subgroup – it has been such a positive experience because we are all driven to do the right thing and make a positive change to culture in the organisation,” Campbell said.
Campbell, and the committee she was part of, devised a workshop based on the New Zealand military sexual ethics training. They tailored it to the Irish military culture and Crowley was the successful tender applicant to deliver the seminars.
The professor said her work in UCC focuses on educational responses to sexual violence and harassment. In 2016, she introduced the Bystander Intervention Programme.
This initiative educates students and staff on how to respond to “all forms of problematic behaviour” from sexual innuendo and wolf whistling to assaultive behaviours such as groping and stalking.
Crowley explained that her work educates people to identify it and then to have a sense of responsibility to act against it – which ultimately leads to a college campus “grounded on respect and dignity”.
“When I read the IRG and listened to the Women of Honour, it was devastating and as a woman in particular, I won’t lie, it was devastating to read that people were working through this experience for such a long period of time and continue to do so in some instances.
“My research began because of my awareness of this issue in society. And I mean, if you read the stats, and the reports, on the experience of third-level students, you will be as shocked,” she said.
Crowley said that she had kept in touch with the Defence Forces and she and Aoife Campbell had discussed projects – when she saw the tender for the training issued she seized on it.
She said the training devised by the Defence Forces used an “honourable” approach that focused on people challenging toxic behaviour.
Crowley said she was heartened to see that participants in the discussions were challenging behaviours as they arose.
“I knew that the bystander approach was the best way because the bystander speaks to everybody in the room.
“The message to the Defence Force is when you speak to everybody in the room, you’re speaking to them as bystanders, so that the information and the criticism of the behaviour lands much better because you’re not saying ‘you do it’, you’re saying ‘you can help stop it’ and that’s very important.
“So taking the bystander approach meant that it’s an all-of-Defence Forces response, the responsibility doesn’t lie with the Chief of Staff. It doesn’t lie with whoever is your Chain of Command – the responsibility lies with everybody who is in the room,” she said.
Lt Col Keohane, who recently served as the commanding officer of Irish peacekeepers in South Lebanon, said that military camaraderie is also a tool to solve the issue and explained that the reaction to the training has been hugely positive.
“It was clear that there were aspects of our culture that were undesirable – behaviours no organisation wants to hear about itself and wants to confront but at the same time there was no hiding from it, no way of getting away from it – it had to be confronted.
“This training allowed us to reflect on undesirable behaviours and it empowered people to deal with it – the majority of people are solid, upstanding, committed people who don’t want to see wrong done to anybody else. The training gave them a voice to confront the behaviour,” he said.
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