They have gone through the violence but they have not received any justice
I have been in contact with two or three friends that have gone with this whole thing, that have gone through the violence, but they have not received any justice. It's not completely done 100%. They had made the policy, everything was done, the stuff, the staff, everything was there, but they didn’t work it. It's not completely working [...]. They gave them the numbers when we had the orientation and they told us everything. The thing happened with one or two of my friends in December - the same thing. So, they went to everybody who they could contact and nothing happened. It just created the person who feared all this. She was so terribly tortured that she left her case. [...] Her case is in court also, but then she withdrew that one too. [...] Everybody asked, everything was recorded, everything was done. But she did not get any justice regarding that. Because, they said, "It's like, [...] it’s sexual violence, but it's not 100% sexual violence. It's, like, 50 or 60 percent sexual violence." [...] But even if it's - it's one percent, it's still violence.
Recommendations
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Promote SANE nurses as supporters for victims/survivors. Ideally, this would happen in the context of a formal partnership with SANE nurses, which includes 24/7 availability of SANE nurse services on campus.
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Use approaches that are trauma informed and survivor-centred.
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Provide long-term support to victims/survivors through university services and/or through referals to external community-based agencies.
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Deliver accessible education about Canadian sexual assault laws, including how they work, and the ways they tend to fail survivors in practice.
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Highlight which university staff victims/survivors can report sexual violence to so they need only report once.
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Provide students with information about what can serve as evidence of sexual assault for the purposes of a university investigation. This information should appear in the policy itself and in educational materials about the policy.
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Clarify the relationship between university policy and the criminal justice system.
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Offer fictionalized but representative examples of how disclosures and reports to the university have been handled.
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Engage with student leaders from diverse cultural backgrounds and genders when revising policy content and associated services. Ensure the concerns raised by these students are foregrounded in policy development and application.