Over four out of five female female rape victims are attacked by someone they know and trust, according to a 2006 report by Statistics Canada. This alarming statistic caught the eye of Jewish Women International of Canada and prompted the organization to host a weekend-long conference dedicated to the issue in Montreal this past weekend.
At the beginning of the school year two 19-year-old women both students at York University, were attacked and raped in their dorm rooms after two men broke into their residence while they were sleeping. A third victim fought off her assailant. A week earlier, a 23-year-old student at Carleton University was brutally bound, beaten, and sexually assaulted while alone in one of the school’s chemistry labs.
Despite disturbing cases such as these, very little research has been done on sexual assault on Canada’s university campuses.
“You can’t do prevention unless you have education,” Penny Krowitz, executive director of JWIC, told The Hour.
The JWIC event, “Sexual Assault on Campus: Exposing the Truth,” was open to all, though the first day was mostly geared towards students. Speakers from across the field touched upon such issues as sexual assault awareness, education and prevention, support for assault victims, and evaluations of current treatment of sexual assault by local institutions. JWIC also distributed a five-minute video to help demonstrate what constitutes sexual assault through four different scenarios.
