On the academic side, indignation reigns. “Another appalling act of rape on a university campus. This time, it was at the ULB that a young woman was raped. How to explain that there can be places on campus that are both poorly lit, without cameras and without surveillance from the security service? If the competent authorities were not aware of this problematic configuration, the rapist had obviously understood that he might quietly commit his heinous crime there”deplores Danièle Zucker, doctor of psychology and criminal behavior analyst, who for sixteen years headed the psychiatric emergency department at the CHU Saint-Pierre, in Brussels.
According to Danièle Zucker, also author of the book “Rape beyond received ideas”, the perpetrators of sexual violence on campuses are not always, as is the case with the last case, the act of strangers to the university community. “Students or even teachers can be involved. However, in these cases, aberrant speeches are still held and contrast singularly with the stated desire to carry out ‘proactive policies to stem’sexual violence”she continues.
”I was able to experience this personally during a meeting with a vice-rector and the head of the reception unit for victims of sexual violence at one of our universities. These academic authorities have told me that students who commit sexual assaults on their campus are not ‘predators’, even if they ‘do not quite respect the consent’. It was just regarding ‘young men between 18 and 25 who had many sexual experiences’. The most important, according to the same interlocutors, was to ‘do not punish these young men so as not to jeopardize their future.’ But not a word for the victims.‘”
According to her, the whole procedure which goes from the complaint to the possible sanction must be reviewed. “How to explain that the disciplinary commissions, which intervene when the authors are part of the academic community, are made up only of students and professors? What is their training in the extremely complex field of sexual violence? What are their skills to carry out the necessary investigations, and, in particular, interviews with victims and sexual aggressors? Finally, what do they know regarding the functioning of perpetrators of sexual violence? At the very least, in order to be able to analyze correctly and, if necessary, sanction and help, these commissions should include professionals of these issues, who would act as investigators and rapporteurs”she concludes.
