The number of sexual assaults reported by the Service de police de la Ville de Québec (SPVQ) rose more than 40% last year, an increase that can be partly attributed to awareness campaigns encouraging victims to denounce their attacker.
In 2021, the SPVQ recorded 424 sexual assaults in its territory, compared to 296 in 2020. This represents an increase of 43.24%.
According to Mélanie Lemay, co-founder and spokesperson for the Quebec movement against sexual violence (QCVS), this development is an indicator of the efforts made to advance denunciation.
Since most sexual crimes are still ignored, it is difficult to assess whether the total number of assaults has increased or decreased in the past year.
More than 95% of the victims did not turn to the police. So I think it’s important to look at this data with caution.advice of Ms. Lemay.
Barriers
He mentioned that many reasons can prevent a victim of sexual assault from alerting the police.
Perhaps your attacker is actually a member of your family, someone you face every day, at your job. So, necessarily, there are contexts in life that complicate or add barriersexplanation of the co-founder of QCVS.
Hence the importance, he continues, of multiplying the spaces where victims of sexual assault can reveal what happened to them in order to seek reparation and healing. In other words, don’t limit our social response in the judicial system only.
The victim was only a witness
Criminal justice, in fact, is a process aimed at protecting the rights of defendants from the state’s punitive power. So the victim is just a witness to this process.argument by Mélanie Lemay.
It is necessary bring victims back into the middle of the process and don’t get them into a system that doesn’t always focus on their needsthe activist insisted.
For his part, the SPVQ declined to comment on the increase in sexual assaults documented in its most recent annual report.
With the cooperation of Jeremy Camirand
Source: Radio-Canada