The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) will be hosting its annual Sexual Assault Awareness Week, called “beFOREPLAYask,” from Sept. 12 to 16.
CUSA is collaborating with the Womyn’s Centre, the Gender and Sexuality Resource Centre (GSRC), the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW), and Kind, an LGBTQ+ organization.
“I think one of the main focuses this year [has] been to acknowledge that intersectionality plays a major role in the context of sexual violence and survivor experience, so programming about that topic [has] been included in the campaign,” said Alexandra Noguera, CUSA vice-president (student issues), in an email.
BeFOREPLAYask features panels and workshops on a variety of topics, from how to look at the issue of sexual violence from an intersectional perspective, to what bystanders should do if they witness gender-based violence.
The week will also feature a screening of the “The Mask You Live In,” a 2015 documentary on masculinity in America. The Clothesline project, which will be on display in the University Centre atrium for the duration of the week, invites students to show support for survivors of sexual assault by designing a t-shirt.
Fahd Alhattab, president of CUSA, said the timing of the awareness week is important.
“This is the time of year where we know unfortunately the highest numbers of sexual assaults happen, during frosh week and after frosh week,” he said.
“We’re very much as a student association taking on a leadership role in [sexual assault awareness] as the university does not do too much in terms of advocating for this.”
According to Noguera, one of the main goals of the beFOREPLAYask campaign is to promote enthusiastic consent and to reject sexual assault and sexual violence. The goal, she said, is to prevent sexual violence, assault, and rape.
“We want to ensure that students understand that consent is mandatory before going ahead with anything in order to prevent traumatic experiences,” she said. “We also believe it is extremely important that students know that they have the right to say no and that they should not be coerced into doing something they do not eagerly want to do.”
Keya Prempeh, co-ordinator of the GSRC, said it is important for the centre to participate in beFOREPLAYask.
“Certainly the work isn’t done after the week is over but this is a good way to start the conversation and challenge those systemic issues or systemic occurrence of sexual violence,” Prempeh said.
Prempeh added that raising awareness both educates students about sexual assault while simultaneously providing support with survivors.
“It demonstrates to survivors that there are people who are in their corner, there are large groups of people in fact,” Prempeh said. “I think having something like this be so visible is important because it’s not something a lot of people consider, especially if you’re not a person worried about sexual violence happening to you.”
“We have to shout for people to even hear us whisper,” Prempeh said on the importance of the week.
Noguera said she wants students to understand that sexual assault is an issue that affects everyone.
“We want students to understand that we are in this together, and that what is an issue to one student is an issue to all students,” Noguera said. “Not only [to] raise awareness about a specific issue but also to help everyone understand that we should support each other as much as we can.”
