The abysmal state of sexual assault services at U of T

Sarah Bell-Etkin (2L)

Trigger warning: sexual assault.

We’ve all heard the statistics.

Roughly one in four North American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. We don’t even have reliable statistics for men because of the stigma associated with being a male survivor of sexual assault. The numbers for members of queer and trans communities are, of course, worse, as are those for communities of colour.

I know I don’t have to preach at you about the danger and prevalence of sexual assault writ large. But I’m wondering, dear reader, if you know who you would turn to here at U of T if you had experienced sexual assault or violence. When it comes to support for survivors in our student body, what resources do your $33k tuition, your $75 UTSU fee, and your mysterious $290 “Studt Life Prog & Serv” charge actually buy?

If you thought, “I’m at U of T, we’re a high-ranking and prestigious school in the heart of a province whose sexual education curriculum reform is totally progressive! I pay higher tuition than Osgoode! I pay student union fees equivalent to those at UBC. I should be getting better university-provided and student-driven sexual assault support resources than those guys,” then you’d be very, very wrong.

The resources for students here are pitiful. The University of Toronto Students’ Union provides no student-driven sexual assault resources. Combing through the list of clubs funded by the UTSU gives no indication that a survivor support group exists. Search for “sexual assault resources” on the Graduate Students Union page and you get no results. Nothing. Somehow, in nearly 200 years, not a single student initiative at U of T has managed to develop supports for survivors of sexual assault and violence.

Compare this complete lack of infrastructure to student initiatives provided on other Canadian campuses. York, Dalhousie, McGill and UBC all have peer-to-peer sexual assault counseling resources. They provide information and act as non-judgmental listeners for survivors who need to tell their stories. York’s 24-hour phone line (SASSL) has been active for 20 years, and is funded by a $2.10 fee from each registered student. It is available to York students and “any individuals who reach out.” This means that U of T students would be welcomed at SASSL and better served by York’s resources than by our own campus. SAHPL at Dalhousie has drop-in hours and a 24h phone service funded by their Student Union (and also supported by their infamous Faculty of Dentistry); UBC’s AMS Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC, $3.39/semester/student), is an inviting office located in a visible, accessible corner of the Nest, the hub of student life at the school.

Maybe the UTSU and the UTGSU don’t offer any sexual assault support resources because the school provides high quality care. No, wrong again. Only one counsellor at the Health & Wellness Centre is trained and experienced in sexual assault counseling; this person, by the way, recently told a student who had been assaulted by someone she shares a learning environment with not to initiate a student code of conduct investigation because she “already got an apology – what more do you want?”

Information about the Health & Wellness Centre’s sexual assault counseling resources is buried deep in a confusing—and somehow simultaneously infantilizing—new website. The homepage features a scrolling banner of calm, meditative students doing yoga and proclaiming that we’re “all together now!” which I guess is meant as a play on the newly combined Health Services and CAPS. So, next you click on the Services tab, and then on Services again in the drop-down menu. This opens up another menu with options including Sexual Health – you’d think there should be information about sexual assault counseling under that, right? Wrong. This section briefly describes services such as: birth control, emergency contraception, pregnancy support and STI education and care. Maybe in the wake of your trauma you hadn’t had the time to process or consider any of these further consequences of sexual assault, and suddenly you are confronted by the possibility of pregnancy or STI transmission. And yet, you still don’t have any information about counseling. At this point, it seems to make more sense to bypass the school in favour of resources provided by organizations in the city.

A tiny blurb about the sexual assault counsellor does exist. It is actually in the Mental Health section, under Assault Counseling. You cannot book an appointment with the counsellor online. You cannot walk-in when you are in crisis. There is no information on the website about the counsellor, what kind of therapy they provide, or the hours they are available. The McGill counseling website, by contrast, has names, biographies, and therapy beliefs of each individual counsellor at McGill Mental Health Services, so you can research your practitioner ahead of time if this makes you feel more comfortable.

Something has to change. There are examples of successful programs from students and administration at most other large Canadian universities. Nearly a quarter of the women currently at U of T will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and many of these will happen during their university years. That’s more than 10,000 women. What are you willing to do to support survivors? How much would you be willing to pay to provide a helpline to those in need? How much are you willing to fight to overhaul this system? And why the fuck hasn’t anybody done it yet?

If you have suggestions or are interested in getting involved in a peer-to-peer sexual assault support service, please contact the Feminist Law Students’ Association or fill out our Google form.