The way we communicate with our friends and family, coworkers and the rest of the world has drastically changed. We often rely on online spaces including apps, social media, email, and video chat services to connect. These spaces bring great benefits, but they also can provide space for hate, harassment, and abuse.

Recent social media posts have made light of sexual violence and subsequent claimed to have been jokes. Sexual assault is a traumatic and severe emotional and physical violation and jokes of rape, sexual assault or other forms of sexual violence cannot be tolerated whether online, in the workplace or in everyday life. Jokes about sexual violence reinforces and normalizes sexual violence and further perpetrates gender-based inequalities. Jokes about sexual violence can also further traumatize and trigger survivors of violence.

We all have a role to play in creating a safe online world. Leaders of online spaces including dating apps and social media platforms must take steps to ensure that they have effective policies and moderators in place to ensure harassment and abuse are not tolerated, and that perpetrators are held accountable, and their abusive content is removed from their platform. Individuals can become active bystanders and call out harassment and abuse. Individuals can report inappropriate content on the social media platform it appears on. We can also reach out to those that have been a target of online harassment and abuse to let them know we are available to chat, provide support or help them seek resources to support them.

How to report harassment and abuse on social media platforms

Guides are available for information on privacy settings and reporting tools on the following platforms Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, and Youtube. (click on the platform to open the guide).

How to report Non-Consensual Distribution of an Intimate Image

In Canada it is illegal for a person to distribute an intimate image of another person without that person’s consent.

Cybertip.ca receives and addresses reports of non-consensual distribution of intimate images of individuals under 18 years of age. To report child sexual abuse content including the sharing of images or video without consent see: cybertip.ca/app/en/report.

For more support for teens see: needhelpnow.ca/app/en/

For information regarding the non-consensual distribution of an intimate images of folks over 18 years of age see: cybertip.ca/pdfs/Ctip_SharingSexualPictures_en.pdf

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month – a time to raise awareness about the prevalence of sexual assault in our community.

Sexual assault is one form of sexual violence. Sexual violence occurs when one or more person forces or manipulates someone else into any unwanted act of sexual nature either physical or non-physical without their consent. It can happen to anyone of any age or gender and happens in all communities. Sexual violence includes but is not limited to sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation.

Survivor’s Hope is acknowledging Sexual Assault Awareness Month through several activities throughout the month including:

• Day of Action – Tuesday, April 6, 2021 – Wear teal to show your support for survivors of sexual violence.
• Denim Day – Wednesday, April 28, 2021 – Wear denim to take a stand against victim-blaming.
• I’m Here for Your Cards – We created a series of cards that loved one’s can give (either in person or virtually) to survivors of sexual violence to let them know that a loved one is available to provide support.
• Shifting from Stigma to Support: An Introduction to Trauma and Substance Use – Online Seminar – Manitoba Harm Reduction and Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre are providing an online seminar exploring the connections between trauma including sexual assault trauma and substance use through a harm reduction lens.

For more information regarding SAAM and the activities we have planned check out our SAAM page.

As always, Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre is here to offer hope and healing through support and education for individuals who lives have been impact by sexual violence in the Interlake Eastern Region of Manitoba. Through our SARAH program

• 24/7 support is available for those who have just experienced sexual violence through local hospitals and RCMP detachments.
• Free individual counselling is also available for those 16 years and older who has experience sexual violence.

For more information regarding our SARAH program check out our SARAH page.

By: Candice Perry

Since 1999, April 29 has been designated as Wear Denim Day, a day when people around the world wear denim in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault. The movement caps off Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and is the second sartorial statement in protest of sexualized violence, the first being Wear Teal Day on April 7 each year.

Wear Denim Day began when female Italian parliamentarians went on a “denim strike” in response to an Italian Supreme Court decision to overturn a rape conviction, in part based on the reasoning that the victim must have consented because the tight jeans she wore at the time of the attack could not have been removed “if she was fighting with all her force”.

Another factor in the decision was that the victim, an eighteen year old student at a driving school, attended a driving theory class after the attack. The student reported the rape in 1992, after the driving instructor sexually assaulted her during a driving lesson. The Supreme Court decision demonstrated how persistent myths about sexual assault are within a culture because it came about three years after Italy had modernized its sexual assault laws. [1] Similar scenarios have been played out over the ensuing decades around the world, including in Canada.

The myth that a “true victim” will ”fight with all her force” or “raise a hue and cry” [2] is common. In fact, neuroscientists have shown that commonly misunderstood reactions to sexual assault such as continuing a relationship with the perpetrator or freezing can be an automatic reaction. The commonly known “fight or flight response” is actually preceded by a “freeze response”, allowing the human being to devote all the senses to assess the danger of the perceived threat. Also, in crisis, the human brain relies on habits to stay safe, so it should be no surprise that women, who in our culture are socialized to appease others and help them save face, might react to sexual aggression by appeasing the attacker or maintain a friendly relationship with him afterwards.[3]

While the Italian “jeans defence” was met with vocal public backlash at the time, pervasive sexual assault myths continue to have harmful effects on survivors, the administration of justice, and society. When the people to whom survivors turn for support believe these myths, survivors feel re–victimized and alone. This complicates their recovery and may cause them to be reluctant to report sexual violence to the authorities. When investigators and judges believe these myths, perpetrators are never sanctioned and are allowed to victimize even more people. And when these myths are believed, pervasive stereotypes about women are allowed to result in bias and discrimination, thus enabling sexism to continue.

April 29 is Wear Denim day and April is Sexual Assault awareness Month, but we are all challenged to stand in solidarity with survivors by recognizing and refuting myths about sexual assault whenever and wherever they come up.

[1] Stanley, Allesandra. New  York Times, February 16, 1999

[2] Craig, Elaine. The Ethical Obligtions of Defense Counsel n Sexual Assault Cases, Osgoode Hall law Journal, Volume 51, Issue 2 (Winter 2014).

[3] Haskell, Lori, and Melanie Randall, The Impact of Trauma on Adult Sexual Assault Victims, 2019