In a 2019 study by Statistics Canada, it was discovered that 71 per cent of Canadian post-secondary students have experienced or witnessed some form of sexualized violence in a post-secondary school setting. The 2019 study found that one in ten female students had experienced a sexual assault in the past year and less than one in ten survivors reported what happened to someone from their school. Why is sexualized violence such a rampant issue in Canadian universities? What is being done at UFV to prevent sexualized violence and support those who have been victims of sexualized violence at school?
When people talk about the reasons why sexualized violence is such a huge issue, a lack of education and consent culture is the first problem cited by many experts from advocacy groups, like Students for Consent Culture Canada (SFCC). Our society focuses much more on protecting perpetrators than protecting and supporting victims, according to Jaleen Mackay, project coordinator for SFCC, a student and survivor based advocacy group focused on improving the handling of sexualized violence on campuses throughout Canada. She says that the main factors leading to sexualized violence include the rape culture that our society has allowed to exist, which trickles down to univeristies and is not addressed at the univerity level. Rape culture is a term that describes the tendency for society to normalize and excuse the presence of rape.
What are the main problems that lead to sexualized violence on campus?
“There’s a lot of factors that contribute to [sexualized violence] and you can’t really point at one thing,” said Mackay. “Though the term has pretty bad press, I would say that a lack of a culture of consent, a rape culture, people not having the tools that they need to navigate those discussions [is the main issue]. Again, a lack of consent in those personal relationships.
“The short answer is we have not done enough as a society to cultivate these ways of creating consent. I definitely could point to the universities as abdicating their responsibility as being another major reason why this happens.”
How is sexualized violence defined?
“Sexualized violence” is a term that is thrown around a lot at the university level. In fact, it is actually an umbrella term used to encompass verbal or written cases of: assault, exploitation, harassment, stalking, or indecent exposure with sexual intent. Examples of sexualized violence can include: making or recieving unwanted sexualized contact, touching, advances, requests for sexual favors, or sexually suggestive physical or verbal behaviors without the consent of everyone involved. In an online capacity, sexualized violence can include requesting or sending sexual content or making suggestive comments without consent.
While sexual violence is an incredibly diverse issue, many people experience sexualized violence through someone they know. This is referred to as “date/acquaintance rape” and is the case for approximately eight out of every ten sexual assaults. In these cases, a partner, classmate, family member, colleague or friend is the perpetrator.
The other kind of sexual assault is referred to as “stranger rape,” which occurs when the perpetrator is not known to the victim beforehand. This is the type of rape that is more often aknowledged by the public, but is significantly less likely than acquaintance rape. Stranger rape can take three forms: blitz assault, where the rapist quickly attacks the victim, usually in a public place and without previous contact; contact sexual assault, where the attacker tries to coerce the victim into trusting them before attacking; and home invasion sexual assault, where the attacker assaults the victim in their home.
What is “consent culture?”
Mackay expressed the importance of “consent culture” and its role in sexualized violence prevention. Consent as a term is both incredibly simple and yet shockingly complex to define and use. There is a lot more to understanding why sexual assault and harassment happens than just not “saying no.” The idea of consent culture is to harbour a community understanding that mutual consent should be the main focus during all sexual encounters.
Consent is often seen as a grey area during sexual interactions, especially with intimate partners. It can be hard to read someone’s feelings and reactions during the moment, which can lead to huge issues down the line. Open communication with everyone involved is key. Unless there is enthusiastic reciprocation from all sides, sexual conduct should not continue. A lack of a verbal “no” does not mean that consent has been given, and remaining silent is a huge indicator that your partner is uncomfortable with what is going on but is afraid to say anything.
It can be incredibly hard to say no, even when you know there will not be any consequences. In many cases, the interaction can start out as consensual, but ends up going beyond what someone is comfortable with. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, no matter what the situation is. It cannot be offered when someone is not mentally or physically present. Someone who is drunk, high, unconscious, asleep, or underage can never give consent, no matter what predicates it. Furthermore, consent must be freely given. If someone feels pressured or threatened to participate in sexual acts of any kind, they cannot offer consent. Consent can seem tricky, but the key is to know your partner, trust them, be aware of their boundaries, and have an open, non-judgemental stream of communication before and during sex to ensure everyone is safe and enjoys themselves.
How are universities abdicating their responsibilities with regards to sexualized violence policies?
According to the SFCC, UFV’s sexualized violence policy (policy 236) needs work. The provincial laws about university sexualized violence policies state that “a post-secondary institution must review its sexual misconduct policy at least once every three years.” Revisions to UFV’s policy began in 2020 and are ongoing until today. The policy still leaves out important terminology like stealthing (when someone puts on a condom but sneaks it off before completion without their partner(s’) knowledge).
At the beginning of November 2020, a committee was formed to begin discussions about the revision of the UFV policy. Since then, many hour-long meetings have taken place over Zoom, with approximately 30 students and staff in attendance. Their main focus has been around the term “consent” and how it should be defined in policy 236. The committee has been meeting every three weeks for the past year, and are almost done with the complete revamping of policy 236. According to committee member Kyle Baillie, executive director of student affairs, the policy will be given to the Secretariate for student feedback by the beginning of April 2022.
What needs to be done before we can say “we have solved sexualized violence on campus?”
“It will vary from institution to institution, and depends on how philosophical you want to get about it,” said Mackay. “The long answer is as an organization, Students for Consent Culture is explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist. We have specific policy measures that we take to not only say that we have those values, but to live up to them and to put them into practice. So some people in our organization to answer that question would say, “well, if we want to end all sexual violence, we also need to end colonialism, we need to end components of capitalism, toxic workplace cultures, etc.”
Many people argue that sexualized violence stems from the very way our society runs. Capitalism as a whole is based on a patirarchial system that views women as lower class people, or, even worse, as objects for sexual gratification. This makes it easy for women and their experiences to be discredited and disbelieved.
The police, an integral part of the capitalist system, has seen its fair share of uproar recently, especially with regards to the unequal treatment of people due to their race or gender. This has been an issue for as long as the police have existed, and is a significant part of the reason that so few instances of sexualized violence are formally reported, (around five per cent of sexual assault are believed to be reported). The likelihood of a false report of sexualized violence is exceedingly improbable, but one in every five sexualized violence reports are dismissed by the police as unfounded. It is unacceptable that the investigative body of our society so strongly allies with the perpetrators of sexualized violence.
According to legal scholar Michelle J. Anderson, “Police may think a rape claim is false or unfounded if the victim had a prior relationship with the attacker, used drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack, lacked visible signs of injury, delayed notifying police, did not have a rape exam, blames [themselves] for the rape, or did not immediately conceive of the assault as a rape.” These parameters are horrifying and a completely unjustified way to discard a report. It is no wonder so few sexualized violence cases are ever reported.
Part of the reason sexualized violence is such a huge issue around the globe is because of the way that our society, with its capitalist backbone, views the acceptability of sexualized violence.
How has the opinion and treatment of sexualized violence reports changed over time?
The Canadian legal definition of sexualized violence is “any unwanted sexual act done by one person to another or sexual activity without one person’s consent or voluntary agreement.”
Back in the 1950’s, the Yale Law Journal described how difficult rape cases were to accurately judge in court due to women “saying no but meaning yes.” According to that literature, women said no but were either unsure about what they actually wanted, had their “physical pleasure heightened by a physical struggle” or were attracted to the man’s “brutal nature.” The journal described the way charges should ignore physical evidence of a struggle on the victim’s body due to the woman’s “wanting a struggle” and then changing their minds afterwards.
60 years was not long enough to shift this victim-blaming approach, according to a Toronto police officer in 2011, who said “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this — however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized,” during a university safety forum for women.
The prevalence of sexualized violence at universities is a problem around the world. At Harvard University, there was a recent report against a professor for “non-academic misconduct,” which is a public-relations-approved way of saying sexualized violence. When the news of this report came out, 38 of the professor’s colleagues wrote an open letter describing his conduct towards them and how professional and kind he was. This is apparently supposed to show that he is innocent, but what it really tells the public is that reports of sexalized violence are only taken seriously when they are committed by someone without a good social standing.
In response, a survivor of sexualized violence wrote about seeing the letter published, and how it made her, as a survivor, feel. Often, the public is offered one of two perspectives on sexualized violence: that of the survivor, which is emotionally driven (for good reason), but is often disregarded, or the legally worded court proceedings, which offer no explanation for the prolonged effects of sexualized violence upon those who have experienced it, but is much more difficult for people to discredit. Truly, the only way to get an accurate view of sexualized violence and its effects on everyone involved, is to look at a combination of the two. Once this has happened, people are in a position to re-write the related policies, in a way that has a legal backbone and addresses the needs of survivors.
What is actually being done to prevent sexualized violence on campuses?
“[Well,] there’s what universities say they’re doing, what they say they’re going to do in the future, and what they’re actually doing, and all three are completely different,” said Mackay. “It varies very much from university to university. In some places, it’s a couple of people working in an office and they handle everything sexual violence related. Some universities like UBC or SFU, for example, have entire centers or clinics that are devoted to helping people who have experienced sexual violence.”
Survivors are often treated without respect or consideration for their needs when trying to get justice and support. An example of that would be the non-disclosure agreements (NDA) that are frequently applied to survivors, not having standalone policies for managing sexual violence, and then not having impartial-like third party investigators for sexual violence on campuses.
Mackay said that “universities [need] to be accountable for their actions. We would need transparency on their policies and their procedures and the statistics that come out of them in terms of how they’re managing their sexual violence complaints.”
At UFV, there is a Sexualized Violence Prevention group, which is a part of the Student Life department. It is made up of three full-time staff members and a selection of volunteer peer educators, who facilitate educational workshops, train educators on how to teach about sexualized violence prevention, as well as manage any reports or disclosures that come in and provide support for sexualized violence survivors. Unfortunately, with only three full-time staff members, the SVP is not reaching its full potential. With more funding, investigation times could be shortened and further support and education could be offered. Adding more personnel could also allow for UFV to put on workshops about navigating the policy itself and to conduct more research on the sexualized violence that happens at UFV right now, like they did with the Campus Climate Survey.
What is lobbying and how does it affect UFV students?
At UFV, advocacy is being done to help with the issue of sexual violence among post-secondary institutions through lobbying.
Lobbying is the creation of speeches and the meeting of activists and students with members of Parliament to discuss the topics that affect students and offer opinions, experiences, and requests to better the lives of students. It brings awareness to the issues faced by students and gives them a voice that they may not otherwise have.
UFV’s Student Union Society took part in lobbying at the beginning of February with the provincial government about sexualized violence on campus, and offered “asks” to be made part of the provincially mandated rules for universities and their sexualized violence policies. After a year of research led by SUS’s VP External Ashley McDougall, partnered with the Alliance for B.C. Students, students were able to discuss what they wanted to change and update about the sexualized violence policy rules and prevention tactics in place across the province. There were two main asks, according to McDougall, namely a province-wide minimum sexualized violence policy standard, to address the inconsistencies found with standalone policies adopted by individual universities, and broader/increased annual funding for the upkeep and increase of services offered by university sexualized violence prevention groups.
If these asks are accepted, students would see “BC institutions [who are] able to put the minimum standards within their own policies and each institution [would] reassess their policies to create these minimum standards,” said McDougall. “That is definitely a positive step forward for all students who may experience sexualized violence now or in the future. This also means that programming and offices on campuses will become more accessible to students and that if [sexualized violence] does happen to them that they won’t have to fight to advocate for themselves and their needs.”
What support does UFV offer students through their Sexualized Violence Prevention (SVP) Team?
UFV has a Sexualized Violence Prevention (SVP) group, which can be found in the Student Union Building, room S111b on the Abbotsford campus. The Cascade spoke to SVP’s Student Support Acting Manager Bryanna Anderson, and Sexualized Violence Prevention Program Assistant Philippa Chapman, to discuss the role of the SVP in the prevention of on campus sexualized violence and the support available to those who have experienced it.
What is the role of the SVP team?
The SVP is “a program under Student Life [who respond] to policy 236, which is UFV’s Policy for the Prevention and Intervention of Sexualized Violence,” said Anderson. “Primarily, we are a peer-led education team who run workshops and advocate and facilitate conversations around sexualized violence to promote education and start conversations around change and creating cultures of consent at UFV.”
The SVP also responds to reports of sexualized violence through the student support team and student support coordinators at UFV. Anderson said they “focus on sexualized violence, consent, and then also receiving disclosures [and reports, and try] to equip [their] focus community with the skills they need to respond to students who do disclose this information in a supportive and friendly way.”
What resources does the SVP team offer students and staff at UFV with regards to sexualized violence prevention?
“There are two primary types of workshops,” said Chapman. “One is surrounding consent and talking about the baseline of what constitutes sexualized violence, how to communicate around consent, and normalizing some of those conversations. The second is [training for] support and being trauma informed in receiving disclosures. Our consent training is often for students living in a dorm like Baker House, or first year students. A lot of our support workshops are for student leaders, those that would be in a situation [where they are] receiving disclosures, and trying [to ensure] people on campus are trauma informed, specifically athletes or people that are in student-paraprofessional positions, so that they have that knowledge base to support those who have experienced sexualized violence.”
A key part of UFV’s approach to supporting survivors of sexualized violence focuses on trauma-informed communication, according to Anderson. The main focus with trauma-informed communication is to not cause more harm than has already been done, and to offer as many opportunities to make choices as possible for people who have had so many choices taken from them. It is important to be aware of the lasting and widespread effects of sexualized violence and try to help survivors as much as possible to alleviate the strain that the incident itself and the process to report has placed upon the survivor.
In her master’s thesis, University of Victoria student Kenya Rogers, a survivor of sexualized violence, states that trauma-informed support is “not re-doing the harm that’s already been done. Someone who has survived sexualized violence has had choices taken away from them, they have been forced into precarity, they’ve been forced into pain and shame…You recognize not only that what happened specifically in the instance of sexualized violence is not the fault of the person who experienced it, but also the fallout financially, emotionally, academically. That is the responsibility of a bureaucratic system to take seriously.”
What happens when sexual violence occurs on campus? What can survivors do when this happens, and how does the process work to take action if they chose to do so?
“There are two main ways that action can be taken when sexualized violence occurs,” Anderson mentioned. “The first is a disclosure: telling someone else about something that you experienced without necessarily wanting action afterwards or right away. It is usually a conversation that is meant to seek and receive support, whereas a report is filing a complaint of a policy violation to the institution and requesting them to take action.
“There are several ways this can happen,” said Anderson. “People tend to disclose to the folks that they feel comfortable with and that they trust across the campus community, but we also have a link that students can use if they want to give us their first name [and] how they want to be contacted, and then someone from my team, the Student Support team, will reach out to that student in the way that they prefer and just have a conversation about the support that they’re looking for. They don’t have to tell us any of the details in order to get support, but they can just use this link to identify themselves [and say,] ‘Hey, something happened and I want to connect with someone.’”
According to Chapman, “support can look like a whole variety of things. Often students assume that the only support offered would be counselling [and that is a big part of what is offered], but [there is also] tangible support like academic accommodation, advocating to a prof for extensions or adjustments to assignments, financial support with food banks, etc.”
“Filing a report is done through the Safe Student Learning Community page. All a survivor has to do is follow the link for reporting or disclosing and then fill out the form,” said Anderson. “However, it is important to know that if a report is made, the accused has to be told what the allegations are and who made them. They will not get all the details, but will be told the facts about what they are being accused of.” While the report or disclosure process is being carried out, Student Support Coordinators are available to all involved to work through the process, access any information they need, and find out what method works best for them.
“Student Support Coordinators are available to walk students through [the report/disclosing] process so they don’t have to make that decision and fill out [the forms] on their own,” said Anderson. “[Students can] email studentsupport@ufv.ca to connect with one of us and just have a conversation about what it is they’re looking for and get support in an informed way.”
A formal investigation is carried out once someone reports an instance of sexualized violence on campus. When this happens, a Student Support Coordinator will contact them within 72 hours to discuss what will happen next, which are investigative interviews and the notification to the alleged perpetrator of the allegations against them and who made them. Then, each party goes through interviews, which are recorded but remain confidential. During the interviews, all involved are not allowed to have legal counsel, as the investigation is not a legal one, but may bring a support person or a Student Support Coordinator. At the end of interviews, which can include witnesses and anyone else thought to have been involved and which take approximately 45 business days, a written announcement of the decision will be sent to the reportee and the alleged perpetrator. During the investigative process, support is offered to all parties, both through academic accommodations, a Student Support Coordinator, and further counseling if required.
Can students simultaneously report to UFV and the police if they choose to do so?
“Simultaneous reports can occur,” said Anderson. “The investigations [at UFV] will often take a pause while police investigations are going on, but that doesn’t mean that UFV does not respond to safety concerns related to that. It doesn’t mean that if there is a police investigation, UFV doesn’t do anything about the academic or the student experience; it means that the actual investigation piece may be on hold, but that doesn’t mean that nothing will be done in the meantime.
“There’s something that is called ‘interim measures’ that is part of the policy,” Anderson continued. “Essentially, [it means that UFV hasn’t] made a decision or finished [their] investigation, but in the meantime, there are conditions that must be in place while we sort this out. It might be a case of interim measures being placed on the respondent, which might include no contact, it might include them not being on campus, etc., depending on the severity of it. No contact is a common one. Even though the investigations might be on hold during a police investigation because we don’t want to interfere with a criminal investigation in any way, it doesn’t mean that students’ needs won’t be addressed on their own campus.”
Sexualized violence on post-secondary campuses is a complex topic that universities across Canada and internationally are continually struggling to address. At UFV, updates to the Sexualized Violence Policy (policy 236) are being finalized after a full rewrite. The Sexualized Violence Prevention Group is working with all the resources they have to address the issues brought up in their Campus Climate Survey, which is available upon request. Educational workshops and videos are being made available to students and staff, and SUS is lobbying the provincial government to make sexualized violence policies across B.C. more seamless and to increase the funding for the vital sexualized violence support systems in place at universities. While UFV continues to work towards a safer campus, until the community and our society as a whole decides to support survivors instead of disbelieving them, and bring justice instead of defending perpetrators, sexualized violence will continue to be an issue. The first step to solving this issue is for everyone to educate themselves on sexualized violence and consent, and hold our community and campus accountable for the prevention and reaction to sexualized violence.
Images: Niusha Naderi / The Cascade
Allison is starting her BA in English with a minor in Criminology to become a publishing contract lawyer. In her spare time, she watches way too many true crime shows and reads a lot of Y.A. fiction, while slugging along on various articles.