Everyone in Canada deserve to be safe and free from violence. May is Sexual Violence Prevention Month, an opportunity to raise awareness about sexual abuse and support people experiencing sexual violence in this country.
Approximately one in three women and one in 10 men in Canada experience sexual violence in their lifetime. Over 50% of women who were abused during childhood reported being sexually assaulted at some point again after age 15. Sexual violence disproportionately affects minorities group including Indigenous women and girls, people with disabilities, black women and individuals from 2SLGBTQI+ communities, particularly youth aged 15-24. These groups often have access to fewer resources and encounter more barriers to getting help.
Sexual violence includes any type of sexual activity without consent. Consent must be clearly given and can be taken back at any moment. Even if you are in a serious relationship, married, engaged, and regardless of the nature of your relationship, your partner cannot require you to have sex. Likewise, being high or drunk is never a defence for committing crimes, including sexual assault.
Sexual violence can have severe physical and mental health impacts that have long-lasting consequences. The Government of Canada is committed to preventing and addressing the underlying causes of sexual violence in all its forms, supporting survivors and organizations dealing with sexual violence and abuse.
The Public Health Agency of Canada supports programs and interventions to help prevent family and gender-based violence, as well as its impacts on health. This includes advancing initiatives to prevent child maltreatment and youth dating violence, and those initiatives that equip health professionals to respond to gender-based violence.
Through the Victims Fund, Justice Canada invests in the development and enhancement of programs that provide independent legal advice and representation to victims of sexual assault across the country. The Government of Canada has also made changes to ensure that victims and survivors of crime have a voice in the criminal justice process and are treated with respect and dignity. These changes include amendments to the Criminal Code to make the criminal justice system more responsive to the needs of victims, clarifying and simplifying publication ban laws, strengthening the National Sex Offender Registry, and changes at the bail stage to address risks posed by intimate partner violence.
To help create a Canada free of gender-based violence, Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE) worked in partnership with the provinces and territories to launch the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. The Plan will prevent and address sexual violence through prevention and support services on campuses; community-based support services for survivors of sexual violence and providing training to frontline workers. The federal government’s contribution to this Plan is the Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-based Violence. WAGE also plays a significant role in building a safer and more inclusive country through the Federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan, a whole-of government initiative that aims to advance rights and equality for Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and additional sexually and gender diverse (2SLGBTQI+) people in Canada.
This Sexual Violence Prevention Month, educate yourself about sexual violence and consent, learn about resources in your community and how you can support survivors. The voices of survivors must be the centre of our national response to ending sexual violence. Visit the WAGE website to learn more about Sexual violence and consent, and the youth awareness campaign It’s not Just.
If you or someone you know is affected by sexual violence, we urge you to visit Support services for those affected by gender-based violence or family violence resources, crisis lines and services in your area. Free mental health and substance use supports are also available.
Together, we can all play a role to make Canada a safer place for everyone. – Mark Holland, Ya’ara Saks, Marci Ien, Arif Virani