The message was loud and clear inside the Von Ayers Cultural Centre in Wallaceburg Thursday evening:
“No one asks for it.”
This message was delivered by a series of speakers as Sexual Assault Awareness Month kicked off in Wallaceburg on Thursday, May 1, ahead of the Purple Shirt Campaign taking place on Friday, May 2 across Canada.
Henrie Timmers, owner of Wallaceburg Martial Arts and the organizer of a free women’s self defense course, organized the campaign kick-off in order to raise some awareness about this “serious” issue in the community.
“The purple shirt campaign is to celebrate the survivours of violent sexual assaults,” he said. “We need to raise awareness. Every 17 minutes a woman is sexually assaulted.”
Timmers added his team teaches women a series of skills and provide them with a knowledge base to use if they are ever attacked.
“The number one thing we teach women is self-confidence,” he said. “We do that by showing them they are not weak, that they have powers they don’t realize. With leverage and a little bit of power, they can overtake any man at any time. Awareness is obviously a key part, don’t put yourself in the situation where you would have to defend yourself but if you are in a position where you are attacked, you have the power and the know how to do it efficiently and very rapidly.”
Among the dignitaries on hand was Chatham-Kent Police Chief Dennis Poole.
“The key is awareness,” Poole said. “We as the police can’t do it alone. This is a fine example of community partners coming together to raise this awareness, to participate, to empower and be part of that preventative aspect that we are trying to promote in our police service and in our community.”
Poole said that Stats Canada figures show 88 per cent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
“I would think that this figure is relatively accurate in our own community,” he said. “Certainly sexual assault is one of those types of offences that carries a lot of social stigma, it carries a lot of embarrassment, there is a lot of issues that victims go through, emotional, physical, as well as then being faced with the justice system, which is not a friendly environment. For them to go through all that takes a lot of courage and they’ll experience a lot of pain. There is no doubt that victims do not report sexual assaults as we wish they would, so we could do something about it.”
Poole said prevention is the first step, as they have officers in elementary schools and high schools teaching about anti-bullying, respect and the dating doesn’t hurt programs.
“When we are involved in a sexual assault, our officers are specially trained to deal with those type of offences,” he said. They have professional background, professional training that they can deal with type of offences in a sensitive manner. We have female officers as well that can help and partnerships with the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and their sexual assault unit, the Women’s Centre, the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre, and Victim Services. We can engage the victim with all of those support systems, even if we don’t end of going to court.”
Poole added “date rape” is always a concern in the community.
“Some of the date rape drugs do cause short-term memory loss and as a result the victim can’t recall details, maybe can’t recall what happened in certain situations, some victims can’t even recall who the attacker may have been,” Poole said. “At the end of the day a case has to be taken to court and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is some doubt in respect to the consent or the level of intoxication… these could cause difficulties in the investigations.”
For the fourth year in a row, thousands of people and organizations across Canada will be wearing purple on May 2, in support of survivors of sexual violence.
