“We trust women and believe in their agency. We trust women and respect their bodily autonomy. We trust women know best about their own lives and must make their own choices for themselves,” states the homepage of the Trust Women website. On Saturday, May 21, Trust Women held a symposium entitled “Sexual Justice Now: An Anarcha-Feminist Call out for Sexual Justice” at the Mi'kmaq Native Friendship Centre, where a group of like-minded people gathered to address sexual assault and how to support survivors. Trust Women focuses on reproductive and sexual justice issues that affect women
I had the privilege of attending the symposium and never have I met a more inclusive, honest and brave group of people willing to discuss such a sensitive and important subject. I have little experience with the groups represented at the meeting and the issues most pertinent to Halifax and the women living here, having myself only moved to Halifax three weeks ago. Despite my lack of experience the daylong symposium was absorbing, informative and felt more than welcoming to an outsider like myself.
The symposium touched on subjects and stories that were difficult to listen to, and I’m sure even harder to discuss, but the speakers and listeners were unafraid of making themselves vulnerable and speaking the most difficult truths. I had been unaware of the Native women’s repeated and most often thwarted attempts to record and follow up on the missing and murdered Native women in Canada, as well as the new lack of funding for Native women’s groups under Stephen Harper.
Most interesting to me were the issues pertaining to sex workers in Halifax. The amount of prejudice and lack of community support available to them, as human beings, was astonishing to learn. Not three weeks ago a sex worker was murdered and it was not reported in Halifax media.
Because of the symposium’s controversial and emotional nature, many of the issues evoked angry and bitter responses from the group. However the tone and feeling of the people gathered allowed those subjects to be heard and discussed without being overwhelming. This group, by the end of the day felt more like a close group of friends than people who had met just that very morning.
Even more important was the over-arching message of the event. The symposium featured speakers that were not merely interested in pursuing a fight for sexual justice in the usual sense, but a fight for basic human equality. More specifically, getting to the core of sexual injustice by teaching boys, not just girls, from early on that rape, harassment and other sexual injustices are not okay. This will help remove the societal blame from the victim, and place the onus for sexual crimes rightfully on the perpetrator. As the Trust Women website states, this “is a concept that is required for a cultural shift in our society.”