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19 | O akville B eaver | T hursday,A pril 28,2022 insidehalton.com Meetings at Halton Region Regional Council meetings are taking place through web conferencing until further notice. Videos will be posted to halton.ca. NOTICE OF CONSTRUCTION Please contact us, as soon as possible, if you have any accessibility needs at Halton Region events or meetings. 04 28 22 Spring Compost Giveaway Halton residents are invited to attend the Spring Compost Giveaway happening May 9-15 as a thank you for helping divert approximately 30,000 tonnes of yard waste last year. During the event, Halton residents can take up to the equivalent of seven bags of compost per household. HWMS 5400 Regional Rd 25 REG IO N A L RD 25 TREM A IN E RD BRITANNIA RD Lower Base Line 401 QEW 407 COVID-19 safety measures: • Cars will be spaced and residents are asked to maintain physical distancing. • Staff will not be accepting cash or food donations. Please consider donating to your local food bank. • Please self-screen for any COVID-19 symptoms. If you're feeling unwell, please stay at home. Remember to bring: Gardening tip: When applying compost to your garden, blend it with topsoil or another gardening fill. For best results, apply 60 per cent topsoil and 40 per cent compost. For more information, visit halton.ca/waste or call 311. • Up to seven of your own bags or containers • A shovel to bag your compost When: • May 9 to 14, 2022 | 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. • May 15, 2022 | 8 a.m. to noon Where: Halton Waste Management Site, 5400 Regional Road 25, Milton Who: This event is open to residents of Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton and Oakville. Visitors may be asked for proof of residency. Gary Carr Regional Chair It's Halton's annual Physician Appreciation Week, and I would like to thank our community's physicians for their many contributions to resident health and well-being. Our doctors have played an essential role during the pandemic. From promoting the COVID-19 vaccine, providing treatment and support to those with COVID-19 to continuing regular high quality care--on behalf of the community, thank you for your tireless efforts and dedication during this time. If you are looking for a family doctor in Halton, please visit the Physicians Accepting New Patients page on halton.ca to find a local practice near you. We update the page regularly as more doctors call Halton home! Thank you to our doctors! harassment of people based on their gender or sexuality. Terminology is impor- tant. According to Rosel Kim, staff lawyer at the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund in Toron- to, terms such as "cybervio- lence" downplay the sever- ity of the act. "Cybervio- lence is not separate from violence," she says. Another term, "revenge porn," blames its victims, and is better described as a form of image-based sexual abuse. Which brings us back to Emma, who a year later had a second incident. She was on the now-defunct so- cial networking app House- party and witnessed a friend being harassed on- line. "The language they used was shocking," says Mackie, whose daughter took screenshots of the chat and reported the inci- dent to the police liaison of- ficer at her school. The bul- ly had sent an image de- picting anal penetration of a popular children's car- toon character, and the rest was "mostly words telling her to go kill herself." Words that, as it turns out, can lead to real harm. ONLINE VIOLENCE AND SUICIDE "Sexual violence has been around forever, but the context has shifted (on- line)," says Amanda Cham- pion, a criminology PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. Champion is the co-au- thor of a 2021 study that clarified the psychological link between TFSV and suicide. According to her findings, TFSV victims' public exposure makes them targets for bullying, which can lead to depres- sion and the feeling that they're a burden to friends and family. This "perceived burden- someness" leads victims to "believe that you're so much of a burden that your death is worth more than your life," which opens the door to suicide, Champion says. In Canada, this process was starkly illustrated in 2012, when 15-year-old Amanda Todd died by sui- cide after a nude screen- shot of her was shared on- line without her consent. A year later, 17-year-old Reh- taeh Parsons, who was al- legedly raped and then bul- lied over shared photos of the assault, also ended her own life. In light of these stories, lawyers have been ponder- ing how to hold perpetra- tors accountable for TFSV while protecting survivors. LEGAL OPTIONS In Canada, not a lot of people realize they can re- port TFSV to the police, says Suzie Dunn, a law and technology professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. "It's downplayed by society and even by po- lice. People are still con- ceptualizing whether or not these are true harms," she says. When it comes to legal options, Kim and Dunn say the key is understanding what TFSV victims' goals are. "Maybe they want im- ages to be taken down, or an apology -- not necessar- ily to put a person in jail," says Kim. Under the Canadian Criminal Code, an offender may be charged with voy- eurism, obscene publica- tion, criminal harassment, extortion or defamatory li- bel. However, if the only goal is to have harmful con- tent taken down, then pur- suing a criminal charge may be more trouble than it's worth, Kim says. The first barrier is con- vincing the police that there's enough evidence to charge an offender. Then once in court, "you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" -- a high burden of proof, says Kim. During tri- al, the accused's lawyer may also expose a survivor to further trauma. Lastly, the criminal jus- tice system moves slowly -- and without a convic- tion, harmful content stays up, says Dunn. THE NEED FOR LEGAL REFORM Dunn says Canada lags behind other nations such as Australia when it comes to education, research and legislation around TFSV. Since 2015, Australia has had an eSafety Com- missioner, "the world's first government agency com- mitted to keeping its citi- zens safer online." Kim and Dunn say Canada should have a similar govern- ment-funded statutory body that advocates in this area. Starting points for advo- cacy may include imple- menting more expedient image take-down laws and regulating social media companies such as Face- book, agree Dunn and Kim. "These platforms make money through engage- ment. What's engaging content is often extreme content that tends to be abusive or violent," says Kim. In last fall's federal elec- tion, the Liberals promised to rework online harms legislation within 100 days of Parliament's Nov. 22 re- turn -- that timer is set to expire on March 2. Anyone with concerns about online sexual vio- lence is encouraged to visit www.CyberTip.ca for re- sources, support and infor- mation. Anthony Fong, Global Journalism Fellow, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of To- ronto This article is repub- lished from The Conversa- tion under a Creative Com- mons licence. OPINION Continued from page 18 DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Anthony Fong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.