Running on adrenaline,Ms Contos made the call to put her face to the story. She rang her father first,to give him a heads up. “He was at a party,and I said:‘I have to tell you something. I’m about to do an interview withThe Sydney Morning Herald. By the way,I got sexually assaulted when I was 13. Bye!’ He was like:‘What?’ It was confronting for dad at first.”
Ms Contos didn’t sleep that night. She stayed up until 11am,working on Sydney time,and had four hours’ rest before doing it all again. Hundreds more Instagram messages were rolling in and television stations were requesting live interviews. “I did that for three or four days until I completely crashed,” the 23-year-old says.
But on the other side of the world,people were hearing her message. Principals across the citywrote to their school communities and praised Ms Contos for her bravery. They announced reviews of their sex education programs,held meetings with police and vowed to do more. “It’s kind of strange – I don’t have any concept of how widely known it is in Sydney,” Ms Contos says. “I do from the traction I get on Instagram,and how many reporters I’m speaking to,but it’s not like I get to see any of this in front of me.”
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She hasn’t moved far from her room since her initial decision:confined to her home amid London’s lockdown,she is watching change play out through her laptop. Wentworth MP Dave Sharma is championing her cause,Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has reached out for a meeting,and both principals and alumni groups from various Sydney private schools areasking for her input. On Friday,The Association of Independent Schools NSW established a team to support schools teaching respectful relationships and consent.
“The most surprising thing has been how everyone has kept up this narrative of a need for change,and looking to the future,” she says. “I think people are being really open and reflecting that even though this is normal,it’s not necessarily right.”
Ms Contos grew up in Vaucluse,in Sydney’s east,and went to her local primary school before starting at private girls’ school Kambala in year 5. She studied at UNSW from 2016,focusing on international development,began her masters in gender and education at the University College London midway through last year,and has volunteered with an education non-profit for most of that time.