She was sexually assaulted at work. It took 6 years for a human rights tribunal to schedule a hearing

Patricia Sayers was always thinking about the women she left behind. 

She quit her job after being sexually assaulted and harassed by a co-worker at a retail store in Uxbridge, Ont.

"I immediately thought I had to stop him from harming someone else," she said.

She filed a police report and submitted an application with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) in hopes of creating change at her former workplace.  

The HRTO resolves claims of discrimination and harassment brought under the Human Rights Code. 

Sayers filed her application in 2018 against the particular store location, the man who assaulted her and managers who she says mishandled her complaint. 

There's no set timeframe for how long the entire process should take. But it was six years before the tribunal set a date for the final step. 

A watchdog group says her case illustrates the problems plaguing the HRTO: a backlog and delays that are resulting in fewer cases making it to a final hearing, which has wider implications on human rights law.

Sayers says she chose the HRTO route because it can issue orders — known as "public interest remedies" — against the respondents, which are intended to have a wider impact by preventing a similar situation from happening again and providing education about human rights and discrimination. 

She says she thought it was the quickest way to make things safer for the women she'd worked with. "That was not true at all," Sayers said. 

The case dragged on for so long, the remedies Sayers was seeking became unattainable, she says, in part because the store was changing hands, two of the respondents no longer worked there and a third was set to retire.

"[The tribunal] negated those public interest remedies."

She withdrew the case, and reached a settlement outside the HRTO. 

WATCH | Patricia Sayers speaks out in hopes of creating change