'Welcome to The Red Zone': Protesters' warning to O-Week students

Sydney University's newest cohort of students have received a bitter welcome to uni life, with O-Week this year taking place alongside anti-college graffiti and protests over ongoing reports of bullying, sexual harassment and assault in the university's residential colleges.

In a snap protest on Wednesday afternoon, students gathered by the clubs and societies stalls set up on the sandstone quadrangle's lawns as a banner was unfurled from a window above. The banner read: "Welcome to the Red Zone. Red tape won't cover up rape."

The Red Zone, according to a report of the same name released this week by student advocacy group End Rape On Campus, refers to the heightened danger of sexual assault during O-Week.

According to the report, one in eight campus sexual assaults occur during the O-Week period.

University of Sydney women's officer Jessica Syed said she felt it was her duty to inform new students of the disturbing side of university life, which is left out of official O-Week introductory presentations.

"O-Week is a very exciting time for first-year students, they come to university very hopeful and excited. As a women's officer, it's important to me to make sure students know that the image the university portrays of itself is not necessarily one that's true," she said.

Protesters also wanted to send a message to the university itself "that we're not going to accept PR band-aid solutions onto what is a really endemic problem that has been going on, as the Red Zone report outlined, for over 50 years," Ms Syed said.