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An advocate for survivors of gender-based violence in British Columbia says the victims of what police have called Canada's "most prolific case of voyeurism" may face lasting trauma.
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British Columbia'You just don't feel safe': B.C. voyeurism victims may face lasting trauma, advocate saysAn advocate for survivors of gender-based violence in British Columbia says the victims of what police have called Canada's "most prolific case of voyeurism" may face lasting trauma.Man handed 4.5 years in prison for surreptitiously recording 652 women in Victoria area
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An advocate for survivors of gender-based violence in British Columbia says the victims of what police have called Canada's "most prolific case of voyeurism" may face lasting trauma.
"There's definitely psychological harm," Ninu Kang, executive director of the Ending Violence Association of B.C., told CBC's On the Island.
"A loss of privacy and security isn't just in that moment, it impacts you for the rest of your life — any space that you go ... you just don't feel safe, you just don't know if this will happen to you again."
On Thursday, Yin Yeung Derek Chan, 39, was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple voyeurism-related charges. He will serve about 31 months behind bars after credit for time served.
The Saanich Police Department says Chan was charged after police seized more than 28 hours of video and thousands of images captured of at least 652 different women and girls.
WATCH | Guilty plea in B.C. voyeurism case involving 652 victims:
Saanich man pleads guilty in ‘unprecedented voyeurism case’ involving 652 victims
May 22|Duration 2:49A Vancouver Island man has pleaded guilty in what police are calling the most prolific case of voyeurism ever prosecuted in Canada. Officers say they have identified hundreds of women and girls as victims.The images were surreptitiously recorded at businesses, beaches and in some cases through the windows of private residences in B.C.'s capital region.
"It's the lack of consent and the lack of any form of personal autonomy," Kang said.
"I just can't imagine how horrifying that must be for them and not to know how widely spread their images [were] and the magnitude of how their privacy was invaded."
Saanich police said some of the material was shared online, including internationally, and that investigators have been trying to get the content removed from the internet.
But Moira Aikenhead, a lecturer at the University of British Columbia's Allard School of Law who focuses on technology aided gender-based violence, told CBC's On the Coast that removing those images may prove impossible.
"There are AI bots that scrub these websites and automatically post content to multiple other websites at the same time. Individual users might do that, save it to their own private collections and re-upload," she said.
"So once your image is out there on something like a mainstream pornography website, there’s really no way of ever ensuring its completely scrubbed from the internet."
Investigators have identified 40 of the victims, but are urging anyone else who believes they were targeted to come forward.
Aikenhead said that since police have given little detail on where and when the images were captured, women have no way of knowing whether they were victimized.
“It feels as though the onus is sort of being placed on women and girls to self-identify as victims, but with an offence like this its very difficult to know and often impossible to know that you were in fact targeted," she said.
Kang said the most important thing for victims to know is that they are not alone and that there are resources to support them.
She noted that there are more than 50 programs in B.C. to support survivors of sexual violence, along with five sexual assault centres with frontline workers who can help.
The province also offers a 24-hour multilingual phone service called VictimLinkBC that can connect survivors to resources, and has recently launched an Intimate Images Protection Service for people who have had their intimate images shared without consent.
Crucially, she said, survivors should know they are not responsible for what happened to them.
"There may be lots of shame attached to it, an individual might feel like they'll be judged if they share what has happened ... Those are the messages that have been there for years to survivors," she said.
"And I think what's important to know is when you experience this type of violence or any form of sexual violence, it is not your fault and there are individuals and support people who will help you."
With files from On the Island, On the Coast and Johna Baylon
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