{"id":16402,"date":"2018-09-26T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=16402"},"modified":"2018-09-28T09:14:38","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T16:14:38","slug":"ministry-launches-provincial-sexual-violence-and-misconduct-prevention-information-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/09\/26\/ministry-launches-provincial-sexual-violence-and-misconduct-prevention-information-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministry launches provincial sexual violence and misconduct prevention information campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has launched a new sexual violence and misconduct information campaign. And there\u2019s a reason the campaign is launching in September: according to the ministry, roughly two-thirds of on-campus sexual violence and misconduct happen in the first eight weeks of school. Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training Melanie Mark says the government will be targeting students to let them know that sexual misconduct of any kind is a crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis campaign signals that we are not going to tolerate, that it\u2019s unacceptable for sexualized violence and misconduct [to occur] on campus, and that it won\u2019t be tolerated,\u201d says Mark.<\/p>\n

Mark says that, when she became minister and travelled to all 25 public post-secondary institutions in BC, students made it clear that this issue was important to them. The times have changed, she says: people used to smoke in cars with their children in the backseat; they drank and drove. But those things changed through education campaigns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s harm in doing those things,\u201d says Mark. \u201cThere\u2019s harm when you don\u2019t ask for consent. It\u2019s actually a criminal offence. There will be consequences.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has a new sexual violence and misconduct information campaign; these posters are up at Camosun (photo by Adam Marsh\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

People are quick to tell her when she\u2019s in the wrong as a politician, she says; so far, no one has said that about this campaign. People are engaged on social media; they care about this societal problem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one step and one measure that we\u2019re taking as a government, but it\u2019s not going to be the last,\u201d says Mark. \u201cThe most important thing is to raise awareness about prevention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark says that students are welcome to give her feedback if they want to see more, or if they have any new ideas about how to raise awareness. There are posters around Camosun from this ad campaign with slogans such as \u201cNever assume a friend comes with benefits.\u201d Mark, who says she has been an advocate for addressing social injustice for 20 years, does not want anyone to go to school only to find that they have to deal with sexualized violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have very, very strong feelings about this; I\u2019m very passionate about this issue,\u201d says Mark, adding that she was sure to make it clear to her ministry\u2019s staff that she appreciates what has been done by former governments, but that it\u2019s time to do even more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the 21st century. We\u2019ve got MeToo campaigns,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are allegations coming forward, and I want to send a strong message from our government that it will not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark says that the public calling on government to have good public policy and good laws in place that will hold people accountable for their actions is an important part of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone should be able to feel safe,\u201d she says. \u201cI want change, and hopefully these measures will start to address that change.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Fillette Umulisa says that she didn\u2019t know about this campaign but that the CCSS is happy the ministry is taking the initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ministry has not contacted us on how they\u2019re going to implement that campaign yet, but the CCSS supports every initiative that\u2019s there to abolish sexual violence and create a culture of consent,\u201d says Umulisa. \u201cWe have campaigns that we run. Right now we have Silence Is Not Consent with the CCSS. If they approach us with this, we\u2019re going to be really happy and jump on board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark says the ministry is targeting students both on and off campus, as well as K-12 students.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Students] would like greater awareness around where to access support services,\u201d says Mark. \u201cThere will be more work to follow; we\u2019re just going through and analyzing the work that came out of the consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That consultation involved over 300 participants giving the ministry feedback. People conveyed introspective, emotional, and vulnerable remarks that Mark says she is taking into consideration when moving forward with the information campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is our birthright to live without abuse,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t accept the statistics of one in five or two in three.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark says that it\u2019s time to take action, and that the public is calling on politicians to do that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are posters in pubs and places that students frequent,\u201d says Mark, adding that through the campaign, the ministry is expecting to be able to reach over 310,000 students. During that time, the message to raise awareness will be sent out to students repeatedly, says Mark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think of awareness campaigns, you have to tell people more than once, more than twice, more than three times for them to really embrace the message that this is wrong,\u201d says Mark, likening this campaign to campaigns against texting and driving. \u201cPeople know it\u2019s wrong but they still do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Umulisa says that the CCSS is behind the idea of the ministry advocating for change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe will fully support them because as a student society advocating for students here at Camosun, this is what we do, right?\u201d says Umulisa. \u201cWe want to create an environment where sexual violence is not even a word.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training has launched a new sexual violence and misconduct information campaign. And there\u2019s a reason the campaign is launching in September: according to the ministry, roughly two-thirds of on-campus sexual violence and misconduct happen in the first eight weeks of school. Minister of Advanced Education, Skills and Training […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-september-26-2018"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16404,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16402\/revisions\/16404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}