Ottawa doctor developing app to combat sexual assault at music festivals
An Ottawa doctor who works with sexual assault victims is developing a new app that aims to keep people safe at music festivals and other big events.
The idea for NightLight stemmed from Dr. Kari Sampsel's research. She's the director of the sexual assault and partner abuse care program at The Ottawa Hospital. In an analysis of sexual assault victims at the clinic, she found about 25 per cent of cases were linked to mass gatherings.
"It the perfect storm, honestly, for predatory behaviour. It's a big group of people. Most people are going out to have a good time. They may have had a couple of drinks," Sampsel, who is developing the app in partnership with Algonquin College, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"As well, there's lots of dark corners and, you know, the cover of people so to speak. So you could try to grab or grope at somebody in a crowd of 15,000 people, but you would not be able to do that in a house party with four people."
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That's where NightLight comes in.
"Say you've lost your friend, you wanted to find them, you're feeling a bit uncomfortable," she said.
"There's a 'find my friends' mode that would send a message out to your friend through a SMS or text messaging type of interface that has a GPS location and a map on it, and you can trace yourself to find your friends again."
Festival organizers would also have access to NightLight — which Sampsel said could be a standalone app or be built into an event's own technology.
"If you find yourself in a situation where you're in need of more help, something that's maybe more official — you've been assaulted, you've been injured, you're very concerned — you can hit the 'report an emergency' button and that information will get sent to event security, volunteers, whomever the festival wanted to set up ahead of time as receiving that information."
Sampsel said she was partly inspired by the story of a woman at a festival in Montreal who couldn't find anyone in the crowd to help her after her drink had been spiked.
It can be difficult for festival security to spot someone in that situation, she said.
"People [are] jumping up and down. Are they jumping up and down because they're trying to get someone's attention, or are they jumping up and down because they're just enjoying whatever music is going on?" she said.
"If they had a tool in their hand that was driven by the person who felt uncomfortable, that felt like an assault had happened or an assault was imminent, then they could targetedly look at that person specifically as opposed to searching around through masses and masses of people."
Asked whether she worries NightLight puts the onus for sexual assault prevention on victims rather than perpetrators, Sampsel stressed it's just one piece of the puzzle.
"There's no one single magic bullet that's going to prevent sexual assault, that's going to make this be eradicated from society. It's one way that if you find yourself in a situation where you need help, that you can get that in a rapid way," she said.
Sampsel is also offering consulting services for event organizers on how to enhance security and mitigate sexual assault risk. She hopes to partner with festival organizers and have NightLight ready to launch next year.
"While putting the onus on the victim or potential victim, at least it puts a little bit more control back in their hand," she said. "Nothing is worse than being in a place where you're far away from any kind of help and feeling totally helpless."