Desperately Seeking Justice....

"We wanted to see how many people we were losing along the way. It is pretty significant."
"We see a significant volume of patients within our program and there's great attrition in the rates of people who are going to pursue the whole justice side of things."
"It can be very overwhelming for someone who's been victimized [to commit to going through the process of using the rape kit, returning it for examination, and preparing to be involved in criminal prosecution resulting from rape]."
"People are afraid of what the process will be. They've seen this kind of case play out very publicly sometimes and they really don't want to be part of something that's going to potentially affect their life that much."  
Dr. Kari Sampsel, The Ottawa Hospital, medical director, Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care program

The research was done at the Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care program at the Ottawa Hospital. (Danny Globerman/CBC)

"Improving the continuum of care from the hospital to justice system is a complex process where many survivors are lost along the way."
"However, achieving just outcomes is of critical importance and the evidence from this study will go to support advocacy and inform best practices for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence."
Dr. Kari Sampsel, The Ottawa Hospital department of emergency medicine; Dr. Katherine Muldoon, The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

The Ottawa Hospital study found only a small number of survivors turn over rape kits to police. (CBC)

"Being able to prove that as a survivor, where the evidence is just based on your body or your narrative, is a really challenging thing to do, not because it didn't happen necessarily but because there isn't physical evidence in terms of consent."
"The problems are not in the fact that they don't wish to come forward. I would say the larger problem lies in the fact our criminal justice system doesn't have the teeth often to be able to progress survivors' stories in the way they can other crimes."
Nicole Pietsch, co-ordinator, Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centre

"They have their fears and self-blame ... where somebody says 'This happened because I was out drinking' or 'I shouldn't have invited him home'. So those myths are already out there and they're internalized in people, so there's a huge reluctance to come forward and report."
"What is it in the structure and the system that's creating these barriers that somebody who can be so violated can say 'I can't come forward?' That's where our focus needs to be."
Sheila Macdonald, director, Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres

According to research from University of Ottawa criminologist Holly Johnson, a mere 33 of every thousand sexual assaults in Canada end up being reported to police and of that number that are reported, only six are taken to prosecution -- and finally, three (out of every one thousand) conclude with a conviction. Now, new research findings out of The Ottawa Hospital's sexual assault and partner abuse care program has been published in the Emergency Medical Journal.

The research results offer for the first time hard data relating to the number of people treated for sexual assault in a hospital emergency setting, where rape kits are available and who agree to release the resulting evidence to police with a view to setting the justice system in motion. This study was undertaken during a period of focus on the national level on the high rate of sex assault cases that police deem to be "unfounded" once they have scrutinized the evidence presented.

What this new research does is to emphasize challenges faced in simply getting evidence out to police to begin with. The sexual assault evidence kits are offered in the hospital setting, yet fewer than one-third of victims of assault release the completed kits to police as evidence. Many people contemplating the level of scrutiny that will follow, including gratuitous attacks on social media once they reveal their victim status by calling on the justice system, are convinced to just let it go. 

Among 406 victims of rape from the Ottawa area for example, 64.5 percent (262 of the total) who had been the subjects of sexual assault, appeared at the hospital through their special program in 2015. Of the total of 262, 202 were deemed eligible for collection of evidence through the use of a rape kit to collect the required forensic evidence from bodily fluids and DNA fibre samples as well as other criteria of evidence of assault.

Yet of that number, of 202 patients eligible to submit forensic data only 129 chose to do so, representing 64 percent of those eligible -- and a further reduction took place, with only 60, representing fewer than one third of the final total managed to hand over the evidence to police. Those in a younger age bracket were likelier to submit the evidence to police, as well as those victims who didn't know their assailants, and those who had been out-of-doors when the assaults occurred.

Numbers for 2016 are undergoing similar analytical treatment in an effort to determine whether any change in the number of people agreeing to release forensic information to police has taken place in the wake of the universal calling out of sexual aggression related to the #MeToo movement that has roiled business, politics, and the field of entertainment as women have been revealing their experiences of body politics.

The wide coverage through social media given to the cascading number of accusations against men in powerful positions demeaning, humiliating, physically manipulating and attacking women in inferior, dependent positions has given impetus and confidence to greater numbers of women to come forward and pursue their human right to a life without sexual aggression. In Canada in particular an increased focus has been shed on the low number of sex assault cases that end up at trial.

A recent investigation by a leading national Canadian newspaper discovered one in five sex assault cases was coded unfounded, in that police deemed no crime had occurred, a situation that has led to questioning the criteria used to reach that conclusion and leading to a review of the handling by police of those cases. In Ottawa, the Philadelphia Model has been adopted, where a panel of outside experts are given access to a sample of unfounded sexual assault cases to judge whether missteps in the investigation were committed.

New research by Ottawa doctors shows that an alarmingly small number of sex assault survivors consent to have rape kit evidence shared with police. Tony Caldwell / Postmedia Network