She ended up on Zoom with the man accused of raping her. She doesn't want it to happen to other students

She still remembers how her hands shook uncontrollably as she logged into the initial video hearing convened by her university after she reported being raped on campus in 2021, dreading seeing the man, a fellow student, accused of assaulting her. 

The young woman, whose name is protected by a court publication ban, said coming forward to Université Sainte-Anne forced her to recount her experience several times, including to professors, staff and students at the small francophone university in southwestern Nova Scotia. 

The woman said her mental health deteriorated as she tried to cope with the aftermath of the alleged rape, while struggling to get academic accommodations, overhearing hateful rumours around campus, and trying to navigate both a police investigation and the school's.

"I had a horrible panic attack afterward. It was just … I had to see him again, and hear him and feel watched," she said of the initial hearing.

"I was just falling apart. I didn't even want to be alive anymore."

The young woman said she attempted to end her life, was hospitalized and subsequently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

In an effort to turn things around for herself and others at Sainte-Anne, the woman helped launch an online campaign last fall calling for the end to rape culture on the campus of about 350 full-time students in Church Point, N.S.

The woman's experience, which she said involved the school going to police on her behalf and a drawn-out hearing process, is an example of how sexual assaults should not be handled, she and some professors following the campaign told CBC News. 

"I just didn't want students — present or future — to have to go through what I went through," said the woman. "I knew if nothing was done, it would keep happening. It's been happening for decades and it's been brought to their attention over, and over, and over again." 

University administrators declined multiple requests for an interview and did not respond to a request for more information about the reporting process, the woman's experience and how the university has responded to the SA Change Now campaign.

The school said in an emailed statement to CBC News in November that is has installed more lighting on campus and recently revamped its sexual violence policy. However, it remains unclear what has changed.

Sainte-Anne may be the latest university in Atlantic Canada to grapple with allegations of fostering a rape culture, but calls for reckonings around sexual violence have been a familiar refrain for the past decade, with students imploring their institutions to adopt approaches that support survivors and strip away the silence around a problem they say is all too common.

According to a 2020 Statistics Canada report, 71 per cent of students at Canadian post-secondary institutions had witnessed or experienced "unwanted sexualized behaviours" in the previous year. 

Eight years ago in Nova Scotia, the provincial government even tied funding increases to measures — including having policies for sexual violence — to calls from students who said there were a patchwork of approaches and services on campuses.