Women's groups and advocates are marking what they call 12 days of action to fight violence against women.
The annual campaign to raise awareness comes at a critical time: It's been one year since the #metoo movement gathered steam and because of it, requests for aid from victims of sexual assault have spiked, according to the Coalition of Sexual Assault Centres of Quebec.
That increase, the group said, is due to the rise in awareness and more people are willing to come forward – though the increase still represents a tiny portion of sexual assault victims.
“We do get the sense that we are acknowledging, little by little, that this is a problem in our society and it’s not just isolated incidents," said Marlihan Lopez of the Quebec Coalition of Sexual Assault Centres. "I still think we need the government to commit to financing projects, commit to better financing organizations that on a daily basis come to the aid of victims of sexual violence. That’s something that still needs to be worked on because sometimes our financing is not recurrent.”
There remain many underserved communities in which there are many victims of sexual assault who are not coming forward, said Lopez.
Watch Marlihan Lopez's interview in the video box above.
