Perspectives on survivor speech

To be honest, from where I come from, I don’t think sex is that much of a taboo. I have talked about it, we have spoken about it, asked questions over and over again, we…

There are many, many violences perpetrated in the city I come from. I believe that not only should we have this policy in existence, but the effectiveness of the policy is very important. There are…

People from my culture are generally not vocal about sexual assault. They really believe that it can deteriorate their reputation in their community. These are some of the illusions that have infested the people from…

When the committee wants to let students know about the existence of the sexual assault policy, they might come up with a number of cases they have dealt with, like, how many cases have been…

The funny thing is, when I think about what I’ve said and what I’ve heard, when you have been sexually assualted, the last people you tell is your family members. Why? because you are feeling…

Participant 2: “Counselling” is such a formal word. Like, white people are used to counselling- we are not. We don’t have counsellors. So the way we talk about it is when we are at school,…

Participant 1: If I say that somebody is looking at me weirdly, I know…I feel like…not that everyone from Africa has been raped, but definitely, somebody has already gone through that. Facilitator: Or, you know…

Participant 2: Say you are the only African in the class. If something happens, you don’t even know how to say it because you feel – Participant 1: like, “oh, I am the only African.”…

How we have been brought up is entirely different and we won’t be comfortable sharing it to any other people other than our culture. I don’t know, it’ll all depend on the individual though. I…

I come from a more conservative background, and in our scenario, we probably wouldn’t even disclose let alone report. […]. As most of our communities are very tightly knit, information would spread out that this…