This weekend’s Weekend Video, Me too: From hashtags to healing, features some of the expert sexual assault trauma therapists who work for the Avalon Sexual Assault Centre, talking about their backgrounds and the very important work they do.
In September Premier Stephen McNeil said the SANE program should be made available in Truro, NS after a young sexual assault victim sought help from the Colchester East Hants Health Centre but was given pamphlets, and turned away. It is now November, and sadly, we are still waiting for this program. I am inquiring on the status of implementing this much needed program, writes Shelley Sprague in an open letter to the premier.
Weekend video: Over five years, acclaimed filmmaker Andrea Dorfman follows the heartbreaking yet uplifting story of the girls of Meru and their brave steps toward meaningful equality for girls worldwide. In Kenya, one in three girls will experience sexual violence before age 18, yet police investigations are the exception.
See the entire documentary on Sunday afternoon, at FIN, or whatever they call the film festival these days.
Judy Haiven: Not a kind word, not a cup of vending machine coffee, not even a hug. And don’t get us started on why the young woman was not privileged enough to see a doctor or a nurse. This is what happened to a rape victim who walked into the Colchester East Hants Health Centre hospital in Truro last week.
Rana Zaman, on the lessons we must draw from latest sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church. “My response – blame the predators, the higher ups and the institutions that protect these despicable abusers, but don’t blame the religion. The religion is not to blame for the vile acts of some of its practitioners.”
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Halifax resident and Shambhala lineage holder, is being accused of sexually assaulting multiple women belonging to the global Buddhist organization that he leads.
The Canadian Federation of Students-Nova Scotia (CFS- NS) has been informed that they are not invited to the first meeting the government’s newly reinstated provincial Sexual Violence Prevention Committee to address sexual assault on university campuses. This decision comes as continued retaliation by the Minister of Labour and Advanced Education, Labi Kousoulis, against the CFS-NS, after an op-ed was published in The Coast on March 15 that was critical of the Liberal government’s decision to vote down campus sexual violence legislation.
The Department of Education will no longer meet with CFS-NS representatives because it didn’t like a Coast op-ed written by its Chairperson, Aidan McNally. The editorial was critical of the government’s unwillingness to deal with sexual violence on campus. “It is our responsibility to hold elected governments accountable to students, not to placate them. If we are doing the latter, we are not serving our members’ interests. The decision of this government to shut students out of representative spaces due to criticism is unacceptable,” writes the CFS-NS provincial executive committee in an open letter.