“I can imagine the hallway where it happened, with my hands on my neck drowning me,” he says. “Then he put his hands in his pants … It was painful. I told him to stop.”
Moon says the five-hour attack took place outside the school in a secluded cottage on the south coast of England, rented over the weekend by a friend from the elite girls’ boarding school she went to. assist: Benenden. He was then 15 years old.
The boys from the two exclusively male schools with which the girls often socialized (Eton and Tonbridge) were also there and saw her fight her aggressor several times. However, no one intervened, she says.
“We are privileged children, but despite all the money spent on math and lacrosse lessons, not a penny is spent on these schools teaching students their right to be safe from this kind of behavior, which which is a disgrace, ”Moon recalls his school days.
“And it’s important that we talk about that because it’s the men who, in some cases, will continue to run the country,” he adds.
Eton, who has educated numerous British prime ministers, including incumbent Boris Johnson, and Princes William and Harry, told CNN by email that he organizes workshops on healthy relationships, teaching students about consent. He said specific allegations are always taken seriously, supporting those affected and working with police and child services, where appropriate.
“Safeguarding the well-being of young people is our top priority,” Eton said in a statement. “Everyone involved in education has a responsibility to recognize that we can and must do more to produce meaningful and sustained change, for the benefit of all young people.”
The school did not address CNN-specific questions about what Zan Moon alleged.
“Culture of rape”
Like a growing number of young women in the UK, Moon talks about her experiences and solicits other people’s memories to break the stigma of discussing a “rape culture” that they say is full of schools.
What has erupted is a heart of anger, which drowns out the deafening silence that previously surrounded the issue of sexual violence among schoolchildren.
After compiling a 15-page dossier of alleged incidents at various institutions, Moon wrote an open letter to the heads of Eton, Tonbridge and others, informing them of the “masculinity” he said he “enters private schools. of boys from the United Kingdom. “” It’s over now, “he wrote.
James Priory, the principal of Tonbridge, expressed “significant concern” after reading Moon’s letter, saying in a statement that such behaviors had no place in his school. Tonbridge also said in a statement that it teaches consent to its students and forwards incidents to authorities when necessary.
“‘We will listen carefully to our students, staff and alumni, as well as anyone who has contacted us directly from outside the school, to establish what we can do to ensure that harassment and abuse sexual intercourse will never be accepted and everyone will feel supported and will be able to show up if they wish, ”he said.
Moon’s letter follows the Everyone’s Invited initiative, a website that has garnered more than 13,000 testimonials detailing the culture of rape in British schools by current and former students.
They include reports of calls to 10-year-olds, six-year-olds to 12-year-olds and disturbing allegations of rape, all well below the UK’s legal age of consent at 16. Witnesses also include allegations of incidents at public schools and universities, highlighting the widespread nature of harassment and violence against women in the UK, a topic recently highlighted by the murder of Londoner Sarah Everard, of 33 years old, attacked while walking home from a friend’s house.
“It’s much wider than the schools that have been named,” says Soma Sara, founder of Everybody’s Invited, a Londoner and former student at Wycombe Abbey girls ’school. “There is a society-wide culture of acceptance of sexual assault and harassment. It is a culture that trivializes and normalizes the worst behaviors and can create an environment where sexual violence can exist and thrive.”
A new line of assistance and action has been promised
“We have since received several reports of specific crimes.
In addition, where schools have been designated on this website, officers contact these schools and offer specialized support for potential victims of sexual assault, ”metropolitan police wrote in a press release.
“We understand the complex and varied reasons why many surviving victims do not contact law enforcement, but I want to personally reassure anyone who needs our help that we are absolutely here for you,” he said. the head of The Met for rape and sex crimes, Detective Superintendent Mel Laremore.
The anonymity of the posts shared on these platforms makes it difficult to examine claims unless they are specific.
“We are deeply shocked and horrified by the accusations that have recently come to light. The Highgate they describe is totally contrary to the values of our entire community … We are sorry.”
King’s College School at Wimbledon, south-west London, also commissioned an independent review and said it would not accept any form of abuse or discrimination.
“The school has established a system to manage disclosures made by students, past or present, and to provide support, and we urge anyone affected by these issues to come forward,” he said.
Everyone’s website has stopped posting school names alongside testimonials, but the debate continues. While hundreds of schools were named to the site, some current and former students, Like Moon, have written open letters to teachers, detailing their experiences of misogyny, abuse and sexual violence.
A letter, written by former Dulwich College student Samuel Schulenburg, accused the South London boys’ school of being a “breeding ground for sexual predators”. The letter was written to its former principal to raise awareness of Dulwich’s problems and detailed anonymous stories of sexual violence and harassment proposed by girls at James Allen’s Girls School (JAGS), Dulwich College’s sister school.
In response to the open letter and anonymous complaints, Dulwich College principal Joe Spence said in a statement, “The behavior described is distressing and utterly unacceptable; we unreservedly condemn it.”
“While we cannot comment on anonymous witnesses, specific and evidenced allegations will be addressed and, where appropriate, we will involve external authorities,” Spence added. “As a boys’ school, the first thing we need to do is listen to what women and girls tell us about their experiences and concerns, but we also have a particular role to play, as boys ’educators, in the difference “.
The victims requested the transfer of schools
“Every time we go in to do a series of our sessions on healthy relationships, we get young people to introduce themselves and tell us about experiences they’ve had,” Brailsford said. He added that it is “too common” for schools to suggest that girls with disclosures drop out of school, “even though they are not the ones who perpetrated the sexual assault.”
Women’s rights advocates say this is a surprise in a country where sexual violence is now processed at a much slower rate than in years past.
“I only realized quite recently that most of the sex I had when I was younger wasn’t what I would call consensual,” Moon says.
“The whole upper school system is set up to protect the boy’s prospects and the school’s reputation. That’s the priority,” Moon said. “What happens to us girls doesn’t matter to them.”
Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou contributed to this report.