Warning: this session will include discussion of sensitive issues.
For much of Canadian legal history and indeed the history of many legal systems the law was stacked against victims of sexual assault. For example, a rape victim needed corroboration from another witness, an almost impossible threshold, what is more based on the notion that rape victims might be less than truthful. There are perhaps few areas of criminal justice that have undergone as much transformation as the law of sexual assault. More generally, that area of the law stands as a reminder that the criminal justice system is one through which fundamental claims about identity, integrity and discrimination are constantly being made. Through the prosecution (or the non-prosecution) of sexual assaults, powerful messages are sent, in particular, about gender. The move from the old notion of rape to a broader concept of "sexual assault" is one example of the change involved. It tends to normalize sexual assault as having less to do with sex than with the violence one normally associates with non-sexual assaults. It also reduces the hurdles for the prosecution. However, it is not without its critics as potentially trivializing penetrative sexual violence.
Class preparation
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