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G20 sexual abuse claims linked to Jane Doe report
Lesley Ciarula
Allegations of abuse by women detained during the G20 summit will be included in an 11-year investigation into how Toronto police investigate sexual violence against women.
The activist known as Jane Doe, women’s studies professor Beverly Bain and Toronto Rape Crisis Centre counsellor Grissel Orellana are to present their report to Toronto Police Services at 1 p.m. Thursday.
Toronto police “are unfit to conduct a review against themselves. They are not equipped to investigate themselves,” Farrah Miranda, a spokeswoman for the activist group G20 Mobilization Network, told the Star on Thursday.
That is the message Doe, the pseudonym of a woman who successfully sued police in 1986 after she was raped, and the others will deliver at their morning news conference and in their report, said Miranda.
“This is the culmination of an 11-year process. Women’s groups are connecting the G20 violence against women with the ongoing police violence against women.”
Allegations of sexual abuse first surfaced as women were being released from the Eastern Ave. detention centre during the June 26-27 weekend that brought world leaders and thousands of demonstrators to Toronto.
Among those making allegations was Amy Miller, who will present a video at the Thursday news conference, Miranda said.
Also speaking will be Alison Peters. “They asked me and other women I was with if we wanted to have sex with them,” Peters said in a news release about the police. “We were told to take our clothes off if we wanted to be taken seriously. . .”
Another detainee, Skylar Radojkovic, said police “told me that I was going to prison, where I would be raped repeatedly. I was strip-searched and called various unprintable names by these officers. The detective pushed me repeatedly into the wall.”
Doe on Tuesday criticized the final auditor’s report, also due out Thursday, into how police investigate sexual assaults. The report says Toronto police have implemented 19 of 25 recommendations on how to deal with sexual assaults.
“It’s business as usual, more of the same,” Doe said. “The police are not prepared to address the sexism, racism, incompetence and their own lack of analysis.”
The Toronto Police Services Board has appointed lawyer Doug Hunt to investigate police accountability during the summit. Toronto police have asked people with allegations against them during that weekend to file a formal complaint.
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/838810--g20-sexual-abuse-claims-linked-to-jane-doe-report?bn=1