The Province has launched a new forensic evidence collection training program to help sexual assault survivors in rural Alberta.
The Associate Minister for the Status of Women, Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk, says this will make care easier to access in rural areas.
“What this project will do is it will allow victims of sexual assault to attend any hospital or health care facility near them, so that they’re comfortable maybe having friends or family around them, or allowing them to go to a neighbouring town or municipality to get the sexual assault evidence collected.”
Armstrong-Homeniuk says this will help close the gaps that are in rural areas.
“Especially in the North and West parts of the province, there is a lack of facilities that were doing the collection of sexual assault evidence. We saw the great need for it around the entire province and we’re hoping by doing this, that there will be more of these crimes reported to the police and there will be more convictions.”
This project will increase the number of health-care providers in rural areas that are trained in providing sexual assault evidence kits.
We talked to the Minister on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, that discussion can be found below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
