Ottawa celebrates International Women’s Day

Five Ottawa women are being recognized this International Women's Day for their accomplishments in advocating for women's rights and against sexual violence.

Jade Cooligan Pang is one of the handful who will receive a Femmy Award Thursday evening, during a ceremony being held at the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park.

She is a student leader who has been advocating for survivors of sexual violence, both locally and nationally, on the executive for Our Turn: A National Student Movement to End Campus Sexual Violence.

Her work began when she recognized a need for policy reforms at Carleton University back in 2016.

“We were looking at different policies across the province that we could use as an example for the things that we were asking for, and then we noticed that there were a lot of gaps in policies [across Ontario],” explained Cooligan Pang.

She added that one of the things Our Turn advocates strongly for, is an immunity clause.

“The immunity clause would cover whether the survivor was under the influence of alcohol or minor drugs,” said Cooligan Pang. “Being under the influence of a drug or alcohol can be a strong barrier to someone coming forward, filing a complaint, filing a report or just going to anybody for help. They are afraid that they are then going to be held responsible under the student code of conduct for their behaviour, but sexual violence is such a bigger deal that that. It needs to be that they can go, get help, feel safe and feel comfortable explaining what happened without fear of being persecuted themselves.”

The Femmy Awards start at 6 p.m.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson is holding an International Women's Day breakfast Thursday morning at Jean Pigott Place.