| CanWest News Service; Global News |
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
MONTREAL - Four out of five female undergraduate students are victims of violence within a relationship and a majority of college-aged men admit they would assault a woman if they thought they wouldn't get caught, say the organizers of a conference dealing with violence against women on campus.
The two-day Montreal conference organized by Jewish Women International of Canada is exploring topics including date rape, the effect of sexual violence on a student's grades, and the question of just what "no" means in an age of sexual freedom.
It's the most under-reported crime in Canada, but still, numbers from Statistics Canada show the majority of female university students will be victims of sexual assault. Furthermore, nine out of 10 victims will never step forward to report the crime, meaning many assailants will never be held responsible.
"Our perpetrators are people that we know and love and we don't want to call it rape and assault because we want to protect them and their reputation," said one student.
Statistics show there is at least one rape a week on every campus in Canada, and, even more alarming, polls suggest that 60 per cent of college-aged males in Canada said that they would commit sexual assault if they were certain of not being caught.
Experts say it's obvious that despite decades of trying to put a stop to sexual assaults on campus, the number of incidents is continuing to rise.
They say the answer is to shift the focus onto the assailants rather than the victims.
"More and more university students are women and in the future more and more professionals are going to be women, however how women feel about themselves inside has not changed that much," said Dr. Norman Hoffman, director of the McGill Mental Health Services.
But instead of trying to give women tools to increase their self-esteem, many say the answer lies in educating boys and men to stop the cycle.
"We're always focusing on what the victims do or don't do... and they're not the ones who have done this," said Deborah Trent, director of the Montreal Sexual Assault Centre.
Global News
