Another survivor. Another institution. Another investigation.
At Cornell University, 57 individuals were reportedly involved in a fraternity group chat connected to allegations of sexual violence. While those implicated were able to continue their education, Jane Doe, the survivor who came forward, faced significant barriers to completing hers.
Young women aged 18–24 are among those at greatest risk of sexual violence, and research has identified heightened risks associated with attending post-secondary institutions. For many survivors, the consequences of sexual violence extend far beyond the initial harm, affecting their education, housing, financial security, mental health, and ability to participate fully in campus life.
It was The Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper, rather than Cornell University itself, that publicly identified individuals named in the lawsuit. This reporting brought greater public attention to the allegations and raised important questions about institutional transparency and accountability. We applaud the Cornell Daily Sun and their community of student journalists for their work – campus activism has always been at the centre of meaningful social change. At the same time, survivors should not have to rely on student journalists, public outrage, or sustained external pressure for institutions to take their experiences seriously. They deserve systems that are accountable to them in the first place.
We are watching the Cornell case unfold with a familiar dread. We saw it as Hockey Canada and Sloka cases unfolded.
Advocates carry these stories with us. Researchers study how to prevent violence, governments commission reports, universities write policies, police receive training, and yet, we still see the same apparatus at work. These are different cases, in different countries, governed by different laws. We will not collapse them into one story.
But we will not pretend we cannot recognize what is familiar.
- The relentless search for inconsistency in survivors' recollection of their traumatic experience.
- The expectation that traumatic memories should be complete and unchanging.
- The dissection of a person's most painful memories used as evidence
- Investigative failures, police incompetence, and institutional complicity
- And survivors who are met with suspicion, humiliation, and disbelief instead of the support and care they deserve.
To survivors who are watching and listening: we believe you. What happened to you matters. And we refuse to accept a system that was never built to find justice for you.
We refuse to accept institutions telling survivors to report while treating what happens afterwards as an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise functioning system. At some point, repetition stops being failure, and becomes a choice. Survivors continue to bear the consequences of choices governments, police, courts and institutions insist on making over and over again, until the next high-profile headline. A university is not on trial here. Neither is one prosecutor, one sports team, one fraternity, one police service, or one judge.
Justice is on trial, and survivors have submitted enough evidence.
The attention brought to this case also demonstrates the importance of persistence, collective advocacy, independent journalism, and sustained public pressure. Institutions can be compelled to respond when survivors and communities refuse to allow these issues to be ignored. However, meaningful accountability should not depend on survivors repeatedly sharing their trauma or communities mobilizing public outrage before action is taken.
Survivors deserve to pursue their education free from sexual violence, retaliation, and institutional barriers. Universities and colleges must be held accountable for creating environments where survivors are believed, supported, and able to access education without being forced to choose between their safety and their futures.
Access to education should never come at the expense of safety, and accountability should never depend on how loudly survivors are forced to fight for it.
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We believe survivors
We commend Jane Doe for finding the courage to continue to speak about her experience. We commend all survivors of sexual violence who choose to tell their stories, whether it be in a court of law, or to a friend, family member or other support people. Finally, we recognize, commend and support the decisions of those who never share or report their experiences. —in In Canada, this is by far the vast majority and the more these high profile cases roll out, the more we are reminded of the majority who will never report, never speak out and never have justice. Nevertheless, we choose to believe survivors!
If you are a survivor of sexual violence:
If something has happened to you, please know that there are people who believe and support you.
- You can talk to a friend, family member or other person you trust
- You can contact a sexual assault centre. All support is free and confidential
- If something has happened to you and you are considering reporting, we can help you think through your options. If you are not considering reporting, that's okay too
- Learn more about sexual assault centres in Ontario here
If you are a friend, family member or mentor, there are things you can do too:
- You can be an ally to sexual violence survivors
- You can listen to the person's story without judgement
- You can listen to the person's story without expectations that they formally report
- You can help them to find safe places to get support
- you can provide access to prevention education about sexual violence: contact your local sexual assault centre,
Human trafficking has three parts to it:
- Recruiting, transporting, sheltering, or receiving people so that they can be exploited
- The person or people are controlled by someone else: for example, through force, coercion, fraud, threats or deception
- The person (or people) are forced into providing a service or type of work.
Human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation involves forcing, coercing, deceiving or threatening someone to provide sexual services. The trafficker benefits from the services provided – for example, they get money or other valuables from it.
Human trafficking is not the same thing as providing sex work for pay. It is a misconception that sex work is a kind of sexual exploitation, or that all people who do sex work for pay are trafficked victims. Learn more about how sex work differs from human trafficking.
Who does sexual trafficking affect?
Sexual exploitation through human trafficking is a crime that affects women, girls, trans and gender-diverse people more than others.
Some groups, like youth, people living with poverty, isolated people, and Indigenous people, can become more vulnerable to sexual trafficking. This is because these groups are seen by traffickers as having less supports and resources available to them:
“Some of the factors that make someone more vulnerable [to trafficking] are social (e.g., gender inequality, history of colonial exploitation, poverty, lack of access to education, restrictive immigration policies resulting in forced migration), economic (e.g., supply and demand for labour in many sectors, low risk – high reward for perpetrators), and political in nature (e.g., wars and other situations resulting in displaced persons/refugees). Results include increased economic vulnerability, isolation and forced displacement, all of which contribute to the push and pull factors underpinning human trafficking.” (The Learning Network. Trafficking at the Intersections: Racism, Colonialism, Sexism, and Exploitation in Canada. Learning Network Brief 36.)
Risk is created when you don’t have enough money to survive, a safe place to live, or a community that you are connected to.
People without these everyday kinds of supports are more likely to get trapped in jobs or relationships that are exploitative because they have few options.
How can we prevent trafficking?
We can reduce the risk of sexual trafficking by:
- Increasing awareness about sexual violence
- Increasing awareness about sexual exploitation and human trafficking: for example, you can become aware of the tactics and practices used by traffickers
- Increasing awareness about healthy relationships, as well as unhealthy relationship “red flags”
- Telling people about their sexual, workplace and human rights
- Holding up workplace and human rights in our communities
We can also prevent sexual trafficking by:
- Working to end childhood abuse, including childhood sexual abuse: studies show that many people who are sexually trafficked have past experiences of childhood abuse (World Health Organization)
- Working to end poverty in our communities
- Having more safe and affordable housing in our communities
- Having more community supports for people struggling with drug or alcohol addiction, including harm reduction supports
- Making access to social support systems easier. This can include: access to community services, supportive programs and groups for isolated people; outreach to isolated people; helping community leaders, friends and family members to know how to help someone who discloses sexual violence or other kinds of abuse
- Increasing social supports, such as community services and programs, for vulnerable or isolated people in our communities
- Improving the criminal justice system’s response to survivors of sexual violence and sexual trafficking