New Brunswick universities report 12 sexual violence cases

New Brunswick's fourpublic universities reported a dozen incidents of sexual violence duringlast semester, CBC News has learned.

The University of New Brunswick had nine reports of sexual violence, all coming from its Fredericton campus, between Sept. 1 and Dec. 9, 2015, according to documents released under the Right to Information Act.

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St. ThomasUniversityreceivedtwo reports, Mount Allison University had a single report and the University of Moncton did not have any reports during thattime period.

Katie Davey, the president of the University of New Brunswick Student Union, said she doesn't believe the information released by the universities captures the full picture of sexual violence on campus.

"One is too many, and nine is very discouraging," Davey said.

"We need to realize that sexual assaults are really dramatically under-reported."

No one from the University of New Brunswick's administration would talk about the reports of sexual violence at the province's largest public university.

Sonya Gilks, a UNB spokesperson, provided an emailresponse about the university's record on sexual assaults.

"The issue of sexual violence on and off campus is of great concern to UNB and we'redeeply committed to providing students, faculty and staff with a safe, supportive and respectful environment in which to learn, work and interact withothers," according to the university's written statement.

"AsNew Brunswick's largest university, it is not surprising that we have more students reporting sexualassaults than smaller campuses in the province."

No standard reporting system

In the statement, she raised the question of whether having a higher number of reported sexual assaults means more are happening at UNB or more are now being reported.

The UNB spokesperson said that not all universities have the same reporting system.

The Association of Atlantic Universities stated last March that it would work oncreating standards for reportingsexual violence.

In a previous investigation, CBCNewslearnedUNB had11 reports of sexual violence for a span of five years.

Meanwhile, St. Thomas University had six reported cases, Mount Allison University had 14 and theUniversity of Monctonhad no reported cases of sexualassault during that time period.

St. Thomas Universityimplementeda dedicated sexualassaultpolicy, along with a revamped student code of conduct policy last fall to deal with reports of sexual violence.

UNB has said its dedicated policy will be ready later in 2016.

Both Davey and Gilks state that a draft of the policy has been completed.

Sex assault numbers requested

LastDecember,CBC News requested the number of sexualassaultsreported to each New Brunswick university.

Three of the universities replied, but UNB requested aRight toInformation request be filed to obtain that information.

CBC News then filed RTI requests with all four schools. In a statement from UNB, spokespersonSonya Gilkswrotethe reason forrequiringan RTI request was "to ensure consistency and accuracy in the numbers we report."

Within the RTI documents UNB states that two of the sexual violence incidents were reported by campus security.

Five incidents were reported by Residence Life. UNB ResidenceLife also reportedtwosexual assaults occurred before therequested reporting period, but the reports were filedduring that time period.

Lorraine Whalley, the executive director of theFredericton Sexual Assault CrisisCentre, said universities should be prepared to disclose the information to the public.

"We're always of the mind that there are stories behindthosenumbers. So that's what we'd also like to focus on, that ensuring that there are responses in place to support those people coming forward."

"No matter the numbers, these are people."