While UVic administration works on developing a policy to effectively deal with sexualized violence on campus, the UVSS Board of Directors voted to ratify its own approach to the issue at their final board meeting on Monday, April 18.
The board ratified its stance on sexualized and gender-based violence as part of a series of end-of-year policy amendments. The policy also mandates the continuation of the Let’s Get Consensual campaign.
The policy preamble states that the society “[has] a role in ensuring that post-secondary education is accessible for all students, but education is not accessible if students on this campus do not feel safe.”
It continues: “Therefore the Society must be committed to developing structures which centre the lived experiences of survivors while simultaneously creating educational and preventative programming and supports for those who have caused harm.”
The policy goes on to outline the causes and effects of sexualized violence and rape culture, as well as to support the university implementing a “stand-alone policy that outlines how the administration handle sexual-assault [sic] cases.”
Some amendments were made to the policy at the meeting, but they were not available at press time. The original policy is included below.
[gview file=”https://martlet.ca/martlet.ca/uploads/2016/04/UVSS-assault-policy.pdf”]
