Sexual assault: there’s no need to tell people that it’s a bad thing. Sexual assaults occur, people take measures to prevent them, but they still happen.
When I’m walking around campus at night with few people around I get scared. I know the likelihood of something happening is minimal, but the fear is still there. I constantly find myself clenching my phone in case I need to make a call.
Suffice to say, I’m glad I’ve never had to make a call and have managed to avoid danger, but there are many people who are unable to say the same.
I can’t begin to imagine the emotions a person deals with when they’ve been sexually assaulted.
I was shocked to hear that from July 5 to July 9 three sexual assaults occurred on the York University campus, and students were not notified.
What’s the point of having an emergency notification system if you’re not going to use it?
The university has different ways in which to alert students, whether it be by email, telephone chain or the LCD screens on campus. Still, students were not notified.
By not alerting the students, York University left them vulnerable. Vulnerability is not something anybody wants to feel, especially in cases of assault. These systems are put in to make students aware if there is something they should watch out for on or around campus.
Last year sexual assault became a hot-button issue on Carleton’s campus when four assaults occurred from Oct. 30, 2011 to Feb. 16, 2012, prompting the formation of a Sexual Assault Centre. These are not isolated incidents: stories are always coming out about sexual assaults that occur at universities.
By alerting students of sexual assaults that have taken place on campus, students can take better precautions.
If something happens that could seriously hurt the well-being of a student or group of students they should be notified immediately.
With it having become such a prominent issue in the past several years there has been story after story about those who have gone through such a traumatic experience and been written off.
In July, an article was published on the Toronto Sun talking about the incident and other incidents that have occurred around the York University campus. These articles paint a clearly negative light on the university when it comes to cases of sexual assault, including the story of a girl who was assaulted 10 years ago by a stalker and the university allegedly tried to cover it up.
Although times have changed, and technologies have updated the university still needs to do more. Vanessa Hunt, president of the York Federation of Students, said in the Sun article that the communication needs to be improved.
With different technologies out there, York University needs to up their ability to communicate to students when an assault occurs on or around campus to potentially prevent other assaults from occurring.
Tatiana von Recklinghausen
Third-year film studies
