‘We need action’: 1 in 10 complaints to Quebec’s Student Ombudsman are related to sexual violence

More than 1,000 complaints have been made to Quebec’s Student Ombudsman over the last year and sexual violence complaints top the list.

With the new school year about to start, advocates are calling for the government to step in and take action to reduce sexual violence in schools.

“We already knew for decades that this is happening in schools, so we need action, we need a vision,” said Mélanie Lemay, co-coordinator, La Voix des jeunes compte collective.

“We know that sexual violence is the less reported crime, so when we realized that it’s the first one that comes out of all complaints for the Protecteur national de l’élève, we see that there’s an emergency there because there’s a gap in between what’s happening on the ground.”

Last year, the Quebec Student Ombudsman was rolled out as a new mechanism for handling complaints in schools. They received thousands of calls and 1,000 of them were logged as official complaints.

“Unfortunately, a number of those were related to violence, sexual violence, bullying and other kinds of violence,” said Maia Aziz, regional student Ombudsman for Montreal’s western region. “There were over 100 complaints related to sexual violence.”

That’s about 10 per cent of the complaints, coming from students, parents and others, since anyone can file a complaint.

“The ones that come to our level — a student or a parent has to have already tried to address the situation at the school level and then at the school board or school service centre level before it comes to us and so many situations are resolved earlier on,” said Aziz. “The ones that are coming to us tend to be quite complex. I think that has struck us.”

Lemay says not enough is being done for prevention at the provincial level.

“Currently there’s like a lack of professionalism and we realize that the front lines aren’t trained to receive even or being able to detect sexual violence,” she said. “We don’t have services across the province to actually intervene and make sure that the youths who also are committing those acts don’t do it again.”

Quebec’s Student Ombudsman is able to intervene in cases and make recommendations.

“We’ve completed our first year and we have made a number of recommendations that have been put in place,” Aziz said.

“Our recommendations, sometimes they’re very direct, so it’s about separating the students involved or really concrete actions to make sure they’re not crossing paths. Sometimes it’s related to making a protection and a support plan to make sure that the student be alleged victim and be alleged perpetrator of the act get the support that they need.”

#WATCH: “Sexual violence is underreported,” says Mélanie Lemay of La voix des jeunes compte, as Quebec’s Student Ombudsman saw 1,000 complaints in the last year — almost 20 per cent of them were related to sexual violence.

For more news, visit https://t.co/SaE0KVrLv5 pic.twitter.com/oDPULjHhs8

— CityNews Montreal (@CityNewsMTL) August 26, 2024

The Quebec Student Ombudsman is expected to release their annual report in early 2025 and highlight the issues more in depth.

Lemay says she wants to see a provincial bill that would help develop an action plan.

“So far, nothing has happened on that topic and we feel that we’re leaving survivors behind,” she said.

CityNews reached out to Quebec’s Education Ministry but did not hear back in time for our deadline.

“On the 10th of September, the government is going back to work,” said Lemay, “and we really hope that this is going to be a top priority because what we see on the ground is that, so far they haven’t acknowledged the crisis and how wide it’s spread and we want leadership and action.”