Ontario Expands Support for Survivors of Sexual Violence Through the Language Interpreter Services

The Government of Ontario has taken a step to follow through on its commitments from the March 2011 Sexual Violence Action Plan to provide additional support to survivors of sexual violence by expanding the Language Interpreter Services (LIS) program.

On May 24, 2012, the Government announced that it will be “breaking down language barriers” by increasing access to services for survivors of sexual violence who do not speak English and/or French. It is estimated that this service expansion will help “1,000 more women a year who are victims of sexual violence get access to social, health care and legal services in their own languages”. According to the announcement, this “includes sign language interpretation for victims who are Deaf, oral deaf, deafened and hard of hearing and are also victims of domestic or sexual violence”.

The Language Interpreter Services (LIS) program provides interpreters and translators 24 hours a day for multi-lingual requests. For the past 20 years, the program has enabled service providers in Ontario to communicate with their clients who have limited English and/or French language skills, are Deaf, oral deaf, deafened or hard of hearing, and who are victims of domestic violence, sexual violence or human trafficking.

In Ontario, all service providers working with victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, or human trafficking are eligible to access language interpreters on behalf of their clients. The list of eligible agencies and service providers includes social services, healthcare, legal services, sexual assault centers, and the Domestic Violence Court Program. These agencies and service providers can access interpreter services that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year in over 70 languages in person, by telephone or through videoconferencing.

Across the province, service providers can request these services by contacting one of eight agencies that currently deliver the Language Interpreter Services program. Agencies provide language interpreter services in the following regions of Ontario:

CENTRAL ONTARIO

Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
Telephone: 416-323-9149
Fax: 416-323-9107
TTY: -416-323-1361
Web: www.schliferclinic.com
Location: 489 College Street, Suite 503, Toronto, ON, M6G 1A5

Multilingual Community Interpreter Services
Telephone: 416-426-7051
Toll Free: 1-888-236-8311
24-Hour Domestic Violence Emergency Line: 416-422-5984
Note: MCIS operates a 24-hour emergency interpretation service for the Domestic Violence Court Program and the Toronto Police Service to assist victims of Domestic Violence
Fax: 416-426-7118
Translation Department: 416-426-7051
Email General Inquiries: info@mcis.on.ca
Email Translation Department: translation@mcis.on.ca
Email Intake Requests: intake@mcis.on.ca
Web: http://www.mcis.on.ca/
Location: 789 Don Mills Rd, Suite 608, North York, ON M3C 1T5

WESTERN ONTARIO

Across Languages Translation and Interpretation Service
Phone: 519-642-7247
Fax: 519-642-1831
Email: info@acrosslanguages.org
Web: http://www.acrosslanguages.org/
Location: 515 Richmond Street, Unit 3, London ON, N6A 5N4

Information Niagara
Telephone Niagara Region: 2-1-1
Telephone Main: 905-682-6611
Toll Free: 1-800-263-3695
Fax: 905-682-4314
Web: http://www.informationniagara.com/
Location: 235 Martindale Road, Unit 10, St. Catharines, ON L2W 1A5

The Kitchener-Waterloo Multicultural Centre
Telephone: 519-745-2531
Interpreter Services: 519-745-2593
Fax: 519-745-5857
Web: http://www.kwmc.on.ca/
Location: 102 King Street West, Kitchener, ON N2G 1A6

The Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County
Telephone: 519-255-1127
Fax: 519-255-1435
Web: http://www.themcc.com/
Downtown Location: 245 Janette Avenue, Windsor, ON N9A 4Z2
East End Location: 7651 Tecumseh Road East, Windsor, ON N8T 3H1

EASTERN ONTARIO

Immigrant Women Services Ottawa
Telephone: 613-729-3145
Fax: 613-729-9308
Email: infomail@immigrantwomenservices.com
Web: www.immigrantwomenservices.com
Location: 219 Argyle Street, Suite 400, Ottawa, ON K2P 2H4

NORTHERN ONTARIO

Thunder Bay Multicultural Association
Telephone: 807-345-0551
Toll Free: 1-866-831-1144
Fax: 807-345-0173
Email: info@tbma.ca
Web: http://www.thunderbay.org/
Location: 17 North Court Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7A 4T4

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The Language Interpreter Services (LIS) program is funded by the Ontario Women’s Directorate, and administered by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

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Always remember that you may have been victimized by sexual violence, but by searching for help you have started your healing.

Survivors Guide

Why Hollywood Is Bad for Sexual Violence Survivors

Something has been bugging me – and some of our readers – for a few days. So, I decided to write about it.

On May 8, I received two email messages from a producer at CBC Radio in Winnipeg, Donna Carreiro, asking me to speak with her about the criminal case in which a former police officer, Richard Dow, plead guilty to 11 of 27 sexual assault and other charges against him. Here’s an excerpt from her message:

Last week, a former city police officer was acquitted of sexually assaulting a woman years earlier…..(it was alleged he got her very drunk, had sex and videotaped it….she had no recollection of it until years later, when he was investigated for related incidents).

The victim herself had to testify and it was a grueling cross examine for her…..the accused was then acquitted.

Today, however, that same accused pleaded guilty to several counts of sexual assualt-related [sic] offences against others.

We’d like to talk to someone about how a sex assault survivor ‘survives’ the whole court ordeal…..and is it things like this that dissuage [sic] victims from coming forward at all?

Ideally, we’d interview someone on our Information Radio show tomorrow morning.

The messages got my attention, so I called Ms. Carreiro and we talked for approximately 15 minutes. We talked about the case, about why so few victims of sexual assault report the crime to police, about the justice system re-victimizing survivors, and about why I started Survivors Guide. Ms. Carreiro asked if I would participate in an interview the next morning with the hosts of CBC Information Radio, Terry MacLeod and Marcy Markusa. By the end of the conversation, I agreed to do the interview. In a confirmation email she stated

the discussion will be much like what we talked about…. your experience, how difficult do the courts make it for sex assault survivors? Is this an example of why they’re reluctant to come forward? Are there any victories in this? (ie….accused pleaded guilty today to several other related charges involving other victims?)

The next morning around 9:00 AM EST, I received a call from CBC Information Radio that dropped me right into the interview. The voice on the phone simply told me to hold on the line and that the interview would start shortly. There was no chat with the hosts prior to interview to serve as an introduction.

Terry MacLeod opened the segment with this statement

When former police officer Richard Dow pleaded guilty to sex assault charges yesterday his victims were spared the ordeal of having to testify against him. The guilty plea comes just weeks after another alleged victim took the stand against him last month only to have Dow acquitted of those charges.

However, Marcy Markusa interviewed me. Although I was quite nervous, I thought the interview was going well. That is until Ms. Markusa stated that she imagined if she were ever the victim of sexual violence

As a woman, ever since I saw Jodie Foster in The Accused… and I’m sorry to go to a movie, but that was based on a real case. I’ve always been aware that should anything happen to me, I’d be ready to stand up…

I was surprised and a little thrown when Ms. Markusa used a movie as her point of reference to counter my argument about how sexual assault victims should be treated when they engage with the justice system because they are trauma survivors; and the inappropriate questioning they often encounter. I was also surprised by her conviction about how she would react if she were ever to experience sexual violence.

Here’s the thing Marcy. Even if the movie The Accused was based on a “real case”, Jodie Foster was acting. She was playing a character. She had to imagine how a sexual assault survivor would “behave” under the scrutiny of the justice system; and she was, regardless of how well she did it, repeating words from a script and mimicking actions as she was directed to.

For “real life” sexual abuse and sexual assault survivors there is no script. There is no director on the sidelines giving them cues about how to express emotion in a particular moment. Sexual abuse and sexual assault survivors do not have to imagine the violence because they lived it, survived, and most likely re-live it in some form every day. Furthermore, regardless of how strong and resilient we may each believe we are, sexual violence traumatizes a person and changes them in ways no one can predict.

I saw The Accused in 1988 and it did not compel me to disclose the sexual abuse I experienced. If anything, that movie deterred me from disclosing. It confirmed some of my greatest fears: I would not be believed. I would be blamed. I would be publicly shamed. I would have to stand on my own.

All of these things – disbelief, blame, shame, and isolation – and many more happen to survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault when they disclose and engage with the justice system in Canada and throughout the world. All of these things further traumatize survivors of sexual abuse and sexual assault. All of these things are the reasons why 93% of sexual assault survivors do not file reports with the police. All of these things are the reasons why sexual abuse and sexual assault survivors report feeling re-victimized by the justice system.

Even as an adult, I was reluctant to speak out. When I did, I experienced all of the things I feared – disbelief, blame, shame, and isolation. However, I expected these things. What I did not expect, were the unspeakable affronts I experienced at every stage of the justice system, which took every ounce of psychological and emotional strength for me to endure to the end the criminal case process.

All of these things Marcy are why we cringe at and doubt your conviction about how you would react in the face of sexual violence.

Instead, the conviction we must all have is to working to eliminate the possibility of any of these things happening to a single survivor of sexual abuse or sexual assault when they engage with the justice system and to eliminating sexual violence from our society.

You can listen to the 8-minute interview here:

CBC Radio Winnipeg – Information Radio Interview with Terry MacLeod and Marcy Markusa

If you are unable to open the link above, copy and paste this address into your browser’s address bar: http://www.cbc.ca/video/watch/Radio/ID=2232479631

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Always remember that you may have been victimized by sexual violence, but by searching for help you have started your healing.

Survivors Guide