The Ghomeshi trial brought about many triggering and traumatic feelings for sexual assault survivros , women and community members alike . The Centre for Women and Trans . . . Read more Safer on the streets of St . John 's Warrior Women is a short documentary series premiering on July 25 . The show gives us a look at women 's martial arts across the GTA , and . . . Read more Instructors " When I was still living in Bangladesh , our car was attacked one day by hijackers from the street . They played a trick by making a rickshaw bump into our car . It was a clear road and out of nowhere a bunch of men came in and tried to break into our car . It was only my driver , an old woman relative and me . They hit my driver and before things became more serious I stopped my yelling and calmly told them that I would give them as much money as they wanted . I told them to at least let us park the car . The driver moved the car to the side as if to park , but then quickly increased his speed . I asked him to drive to the army base , to be safe . The hijackers stopped following us and we got home safe . " " In a northern Ontario town that I lived in , a young woman of 17 was raped . She had support and charged the man who raped her . It was a rural town , and everyone knew of the case . He was convicted of the rape . The judge gave the man a $ 700 fine as his punishment for the crime of rape . The community who supported her was outraged at the sentence and discussed what to do . A group of us decided to make up an ad campaign that ran on the radio , TV and newspaper . It was like a tourism ad , and said , " Men , come travel to this community for a visit . You can rape 17 - year - old girls for only $ 700 . " Three days after the ads started , the crown attorney launched an appeal of the sentence the man had received . He was sentenced to three years in jail . " Two older guys invited herself and a friend back to one of their homes after school ; his parents were not going to be home . The girls , flattered , said they were interested and decided to meet up . When they got to the house , both guys were waiting outside ; one had a bike with him . The boy with the bike stayed outside with Stacey talking casually while her friend went into the house with the other boy . All of a sudden Stacey heard her friend yelling from inside the house " Don 't do that ! " Stacey started to move towards the house , but the guy with the bike used it to block her from doing so . She tried to move around him , but the guy would follow her moves , using his bike to prevent her from moving closer to the house . She remembered from Wen - Do that the collarbone was one of the easiest bones to break , so she made a hammer fist , and , recalling the focus of breaking her pine board , she smashed her fist through the guy 's collarbone . He immediately let go of the bike , dropped to his knees , and Stacey ran into the house , grabbed her friend and got out of there . " A 29 - year - old woman was walking alone in the Jarvis and Carlton Street area just before 5 a . m . when a vehicle pulled up beside her . Police said the driver asked her for the time , then got out of the car and grabbed her , covering her mouth . Then the front seat passenger got out of the car and grabbed the woman by her legs , helping the driver carry her to the car . They tried to pull her inside , but she managed to wrestle free , police said . My two kids and I went to the library on a Friday . My kids left looking for a specific book . I was reading the newspaper when a really old man came to the table and started talking to me . He seemed nice and was from the same culture , so I talked with him . After a while , he grabbed my hand and said inappropriate sexual comments . I stood up and yelled , " This man is teasing me ! " and everybody gathered , including my children . I told everyone and he left . I stayed in the library for hours after the man left . " Authorities would not say whether the woman , 35 , was an employee at the store . They said she was near a fence outside , when a man attacked her from behind . The man reportedly pushed the woman against the fence and tried to rape her , but she was able to fight back with a box cutter . There was a woman riding the subway who felt a hand on her butt . She turned around and saw the culprit - who was wearing a guilty look on his face . She grabbed him by the ear , got off the train , and marched him up the stairs to the ticket taker who called the police . " Some time after I 'd started a new job , one of my new co - workers asked me what my background was . I was starting to tell her I was a women 's self de - when she cut me off and said , OMG do you teach Wen - Do ? I replied YES ! She told me " Wen - Do saved my life ! " She had taken Wen - Do back in the mid - 80 's and again in the mid - 90 's . She broke the nose of an attacker - who was someone she was dating at the time - as he attempted to sexually assault her . She got away safely . I know it 's a short story , but so so powerful … and she was so thrilled to share it with me … " Before I took this course someone tried to sexually assault me at a party and I got away . Never has anyone made me feel proud or brave for getting away . They have only told me I shouldn 't have been there and I shouldn 't have been drinking . It was only at and during this course that I felt proud of getting away . Thank you so much . " When my mother was 14 , she lived in Iran . One day she was in the market with lots of family and friends . A man she didn 't know grabbed her between the legs in the front . She grabbed him and pulled him into her , beating him about the head . She punched and punched and punched him until he hit the ground and she left . Her family and friends validated her and told her she did the right thing . " " A teen was on the bus and was being leered at by man in his late 50 's or early 60 's . She said , " So what do you want … a girlfriend or a grand - daughter ? ? ? " He decided he wanted nothing and got up and changed seats . A girl was on the bus , and a man was standing at the pole in front of her seat . He was leering and making sexual comments to her . A young woman saw this . She got up from her seat , and stood facing him at the pole , blocking his view of the girl . Then , she stared at him . No words . Just stared . He got off at the next stop . " A participant in a Wen - Do class told us this story : When I was a teenager in El Salvador , I came home to find that my dad - who worked in the military - had lined up my mom and two sisters in chairs and was pointing the gun at them . As I entered the room and saw what was happening , I lunged at his outstretched arms . At the same time I yelled to my mom and sisters to run away . I brought my two arms down over his arms . As my dad 's arms and gun came down , I heard three shots - Bam ! Bam ! Bam ! He fired into the ground at his feet and we all got away . " When I was about 13 or 14 years old , I was walking home and there was a group of boys - four or five of them - taunting , pushing , touching and yelling at a girl about my age . They 'd go at her , back off slightly , and go at her again . I ran forward and yelled at them to stop it , to leave her alone , to get away . I stood next to her . They turned and ran . I walked her back a few blocks past my home . No one approached her again . " A student of mine in Toronto told this story . This had happened when she was in Grade 5 in Korea . She was walking home one evening after a doctor 's appointment , when a man came up to her and asked her for directions . The destination he claimed he was going to lay across a construction site , and he asked her to go with him to show him the way . As they walked across the site , he put his hand on the back of her neck , saying that he was cold . She felt very uncomfortable , but didn 't know what to do . ( " I had a severe case of nice - girl syndrome , " the woman said as she told me the story . ) They went on , and when they reached a dark area of the site , he pulled her into a corner and started trying to take her clothes off . She froze . She had no idea what to do . Then he started to unzip her pants , and suddenly she knew this was the limit . She had to do something . And she started to scream . As soon as she screamed , some people passing the area looked around , and the man let go of her and ran away ! She ran home , starting to cry as she went , and she said that the crying felt good , it felt liberating . Her mother , her grandmother , and her sisters were all home when she ran in . She was able to tell them what had happened , and they took care of her . " I heard this story from a woman who took a Basic Wen - Do class in Toronto . She was originally from Afghanistan , but was living as a refugee in Pakistan at the time that this story took place . I 'm guessing she was in her fifties or so at the time . One day a stranger tried to grab her as she was walking outside . She yelled , and a neighbour came out , and the man ran away . Then , over the next few days , she noticed a man following her on the street . She thought it was the same man who had tried to attack her , though she wasn 't absolutely sure . This made her very nervous , so she decided to carry a packet of red chili powder with her when she went out . After about three days , this man approached her , started trying to talk to her , and then grabbed her . But she was ready . She threw the chili powder in his face , and he let go of her and ran away . She never saw him again . This same woman said she was once travelling on a bus between Karachi and Peshawar . It was during Ramadan , and evening was approaching . At one of the stops , a man came onto the bus and offered the passengers some dates , to break their fast . She felt suspicious of him , and after he stepped off the bus , she said to the other passengers , " Don 't eat those dates ! They might be drugged . " The bus driver thought she might be right , so he gave one of the dates to a dog to see what would happen . The dog ate the date and passed out . Presumably the guy 's plan had been to drug all the passengers , then rob or assault them , but her quick thinking had protected them all . " A student in my class said that she had once taken her three - year - old son to have a meal at Swiss Chalet with the child 's father , her ex - husband . Her ex had been nice and friendly as they were eating , but suddenly , just as they had finished paying , he grabbed the little boy and tried to drag him out of the restaurant . She tried her best to hold onto the boy , but her ex managed to get as far as the street . So she yelled , " Help ! He 's kidnapping my child ! " Bystanders heard her and quickly gathered around , and her ex let go of the child and left . " A student of mine told this story . She said that a friend of hers , back in Poland , was in bed with her boyfriend one evening . He was drunk and wanted to have sex , but she refused . He got angry , pushed her onto the floor and started trying to kick her . She grabbed the foot he was trying to kick her with , and bit his little toe . He fainted from the pain ! She thinks the toe must have been broken . This woman was on her way to a party , and was wearing a lot of gold jewellery . The friend she was with was also wearing a lot of jewellery , but hers was costume jewellery , not real gold . On the way , two men carrying guns and knives rode up on a motorcycle , forced their vehicle to stop , and ordered the women to hand over their jewellery . The first woman took off her jewellery and threw it on the ground , saying , " Take it ! What do I care ? It 's not even real gold anyway . " The robbers believed her , left her jewellery lying on the ground , and demanded the other woman 's jewellery , which she gave them . They rode off with all the costume jewellery in their possession , leaving the real gold on the ground . After they had left , the two woman picked up the real gold jewellery . I hope they felt pretty proud of themselves for having been so quick - thinking ! " After all , it was a success - I escaped , I fought with all my strength and I knew he had no right to hurt me . During the struggle I had a flash - image of my body assaulted , abused and raped , and I knew it could not happen . I wouldn 't let it happen . At the time , I didn 't think of it that way - I just used all my strength and instincts and fought … At about 8 : 30 a . m . I went for a run in the local park just outside of town . It was a relatively warm January morning . I had run perhaps 1K up a mild hill when I saw a man in his forties walking down . As I was passing by him , he asked what time it was , and after receiving an answer that I had no watch , he grabbed both my wrists and started pulling me to the side of the pathway . As I was struggling against his hands and arms , the attacker attempted to choke me and kept pulling me away from the walkway . I was losing my strength . I decided to stop fighting ; I hugged a tree very tight and gathered my thoughts . I gave him a few kicks to the shins and knees and awaited an opportunity to free myself and run . The moment came when , during another struggle , I managed to free my body from his arms . He was holding the sleeve of my sweatshirt - I jerked my arm , with the sleeve , and … . Ran ! I ran the fastest and most exhausting distance of my life . I knew he wouldn 't catch me , but I looked behind and kept running until I was amongst people . Although at the time of the attack I didn 't know any Wen - Do moves , I think I had what is the driving and underlying principle of self - defence - I believed that no one has the right to do any harm to me . I also had the drive and power not to allow it . I just knew that the flash of my body - humiliated and abused - could not happen . I did not and do not deserve to have that happen to me . No one does . " One of my students told this story . She was just coming out of her apartment building when a man , a complete stranger , came up to her and said lecherously , " Hey … I 'd like to have sex with you . " She was shocked , but stood her ground , and said matter - of - factly , " You 'd better stay away from me . The police are looking for me . I 've just killed my husband . " Her husband had a male friend over at their home . Both men had been drinking heavily . The friend followed her into the kitchen and tried to pull her into him . Her husband had entered the kitchen and did nothing to stop his friend . She pushed him away and ran for the phone . She wanted to call the police but did not know how ( she had just recently arrived in Canada and did not speak English ) . She did , however , know her brother - in - law 's phone number , and dialled it . She held the phone in one hand and she grabbed the carving knife from the kitchen in the other . She told the two men that she had called the police . She waved the knife in the air and told them that she would kill them with the knife if they did not get out of there . They did . She was not hurt . " I was at a conference with a co - worker of mine . Whenever this man wanted me to do something , he would whistle for me , the way you 'd call a dog . I told him politely that I didn 't like being treated that way , but he kept doing it . I told him again , a little more forcefully ; I was starting to lose patience . But a little while later he did it again , in front of a whole crowd of conference participants . By then I was so angry I turned around and bellowed , " DO I SHIT ON YOUR LAWN ? DO YOU WANT ME TO SHIT ON YOUR LAWN ? IF YOU DON ' T WANT ME TO SHIT ON YOUR LAWN , DON ' T WHISTLE AT ME ! " We passed a couple of men who were doing some repairs to the front of a Shopper 's Drug Mart . One of the men , who was up a ladder , looked down at my daughter and me and yelled out , " Go on , why don 't you give her a big kiss . Go on , I know you can do it , just give her a big kiss . " As a lesbian , I 'd experienced homophobic harassment many times before , but no incident had ever made me as angry as this one , and that was because it involved my daughter . The thought of knocking this man right off his ladder was very tempting . I went up to the base of the ladder and suggested to him that he would be seriously hurt if he were to fall off . I also told his co - worker that this man 's behaviour was completely unacceptable . I refrained from doing him any physical harm , but when we got home I called Shopper 's Drug Mart and told the assistant manager what had happened . I named the incident for what it was , homophobic harassment , and drew his attention to the fact that the store 's image would be affected by the behaviour of its contractor 's employees . He agreed . The next day he called me back and said that the store 's manager had spoken to the contractor employing this man , and that disciplinary action had been taken against him . " I was walking home from work about nine o ' clock in the evening , along a dark street . All of a sudden a man came out of an alley , grabbed me around the waist with one arm , put his other hand over my mouth , and started to drag me toward a car in the alley . As he did this , one of my sandals slipped off . I let my muscles relax , didn 't struggle , and , as best I could with his hand over my mouth , said , " Look , that 's fine . I 'll come with you . No problem . Just let me get my sandal first , will you ? " As I ran , I could hear him shouting , " You tricked me ! You tricked me ! " Which was true , of course . I kept running and got home safely . " " I was at a warehouse party in the College and Bathurst area in Toronto . It was very dark and loud and crowded . Partway through the evening , a guy walked up to me ( a pretty big , muscular guy , I might add ) , grabbed me by the wrist , and said , " Dance with me . " I released my wrist ( I 'd learned how in an earlier self - defence class ) and said , " No . " He got angry and said , " Nobody talks to me that way . " I walked away . A few minutes later he came over again and said , " Are you ready to dance with me now ? " I told him to get lost . I was trying to stick close to friends I trusted , but he kept hanging around the same area and looking over at me ; and when the friend I was with walked away for a second , he came up again , grabbed my arm hard , and said . " Come with me , I want to talk to you . " And he started pulling me toward a very dark comer of the hall , where there was a fire exit leading out of the building . This felt very threatening . There was no way I was going over there with him . He could easily have attacked me there , or tried to drag me out of the building , without anyone realizing what was going on . So I thought fast , tapped him on the shoulder , and said something like , " You know , I would like to talk with you . I 'd actually really like to get to know you better . I 'm sorry I kind of blew you off earlier - I didn 't mean it , I was just stressed out , I was pissed off at my friend … How about we go out into the lobby , where it 's quiet - it 'll be easier to talk there . " Well , he bought it , and he walked back through the whole warehouse and out into the lobby with me . I had chosen the lobby on purpose because it was a lot quieter there , and the lights were on . As soon as we got there , I yelled , " LET ME GO ! YOU ' VE BEEN BUGGING ME ALL NIGHT ! I DON ' T KNOW WHO YOU ARE ! I DON ' T WANT YOU TOUCHING ME ! … " So that was the end of him harassing me . He yelled threats as he was being made to leave , like " You set me up . bitch ! I 'm going to get you ! " so I chose to stay in the lobby the rest of the night , and later I had a couple of security people walk me to my car . in case he was still around ; but he didn 't show up again . " I was standing on the subway platform at Castle Frank station in Toronto when this bunch of guys came up and started harassing me . It made me really nervous . I was on crutches because I 'd had knee surgery , so I figured I couldn 't run very well . So I started barking . It was the first thing that came into my head . I barked and barked , like a mad ferocious dog , and these guys just stared at me with their jaws hanging open . Finally they turned around and walked away . " " I work at the Parkdale Community Information Centre in Toronto . One of the seniors who comes to our centre for help filling out forms told me a story that happened to her a few years ago . She was about 65 at the time that this happened . She said that she was walking in the Queen and Lansdowne area at about two o ' clock in the afternoon , when a man came up and tried to grab her purse . She grabbed his crotch , and hit him in the neck with the side of her hand , and he passed out . When the police came , they asked . " How did you do that ? " and she said , " You want me to try it on you ? " " I been through two wars , " she told me . " I know how to fight . " She grew up in Europe , and had been with the Red Cross in the Second World War . " And my boyfriend , he had a black belt in judo , and he taught me quite a bit . " " I 'm alert , I tell you that much . " she said . " Don 't get tangled up with me . I 'm not taking no nuisance from nobody . " " This story happened to my grandmother back in Somalia . It happened around 1960 or so ; she would have been about forty or forty - five years old then . She lived in Mogadishu . She was standing in the street one day watching a neighbourhood dance , when she felt something press into her back . She thought someone had just bumped into her , so she moved out of the way , but then she felt it again . She looked behind her , and she saw that a man had taken his penis out of his pants and was pushing it against her . So she reached down , grabbed his penis , and said , " We 're going to the police station . " And she marched him through the street like that , hauling him along , with everybody pointing and exclaiming and calling out , until they got to the police station , which was perhaps a ten - minute walk away . When they got there she told the police what had happened and the man was arrested . " He had hit me once before , back when we were together . He had pushed me out of a chair and hit me with the chair . That was why I broke up with him . Eventually , though , we got to be on reasonably friendly terms again . I didn 't want to get back together with him , but I didn 't think of him as a danger to me . A girlfriend of mine once told me that she thought he 'd be capable of murder … but I didn 't believe that . Several months after the breakup , I let him crash at my place for a few days because he needed someplace to stay . One evening he got drunk , we got into a big argument , and he got really angry . He 's a tall , muscular guy , much bigger than me . He grabbed me by the front of the shirt , tightening the cloth around my neck so I could barely breathe . I struggled and hit him in the side of the head , but he didn 't let go . He kept choking me . Then he started trying to push me down on the bed . I felt like I didn 't even know who this person was , like there was a monster inside him that was coming out , and suddenly I thought , " What if he 's trying to kill me ? " I gathered all my strength and kicked him in the crotch as hard as I could . He let go of me . He looked totally shocked . I yelled and screamed at him , " Get out ! Just GET OUT ! " and chased him out of the apartment . That 's why I came to this shelter . I didn 't want him to be able to find me . I 'll be getting a new apartment as soon as I can . You know , I felt bad at first that I 'd hurt him . It wasn 't easy for me to come to terms with that . I 'd always thought of myself as a gentle person , and had never wanted to hurt anybody . But I would do it again if I had to . I had no other choice if I wanted to protect myself . I am not willing to put up with that kind of treatment from anybody . " " At the time this story took place I was living in London , England , and working as a bartender . My shift ended at midnight . Cab fare home would have taken a lot out of my small paycheque , so I generally took the bus . This meant that after taking one bus from my workplace , I had to wait for another bus at one o ' clock in the morning , in an area noted for a high rate of violent street crime . That night there were about ten people at that bus stop , including some women . I figured there was safety in numbers and stayed close to the other women . We waited and waited , but the bus never came . Eventually the other people at the bus stop started to drift away , probably to walk home . My place was too far for me to walk , so by the time about half the people had left , I started to try to hail a cab . But none of the cabs would stop in that part of town at that time of night . As cab after cab drove by without responding to my hails , I started to feel extremely apprehensive ; but I concentrated hard on keeping my cool and staying aware of my surroundings . After about an hour , there was only me and one man left at the bus stop . At this point he started trying to talk to me . He started off with apparently harmless questions like " Do you have the time ? " and went on to more and more personal questions , like " Are you American ? " " How long are you in town ? " " Where do you live ? " From the very start I made it clear that I didn 't want to talk to him , saying things like " Look , I 've had a hard day at work - I just want to be left alone . " By then I was on red alert ; my hands had come out of my pockets and I the edge of the sidewalk , ready to jump into traffic if I needed to . I put my Walkman on , to make it obvious I didn 't want to talk to him , but kept the sound off , so that I could still hear . All the while I kept trying to flag down a cab , but they still wouldn 't stop . If something like this had happened before I took Wen - Do , I think I would have frozen with fear , and felt I had no choices left . But instead I was able to turn my fear into anger . I felt furious , enraged ; I thought , " How DARE you touch me ! " I would have kicked him , but I was literally off my feet ; my heels were dragging along the ground . So I did whatever else I could in that position , which was to yell and curse and struggle without stopping . And all the time I was thinking of what else I would do if he kept going ; for instance , " If I get a chance to kick , I 'm going to break his kneecap … If he gets me on the ground I 'm going to poke his eyes out . " He didn 't run from the scene , but instead slowly walked away , as if he were experienced in this and knew that running would draw attention to him . I definitely got the sense that he had done this kind of thing before . I was in shock , but I managed to keep my eye on him , just in case he decided to turn around and try again . And I walked out into the middle of the road and literally stood in front of the first cab that came along , waving my arms , to force it to stop and pick me up . Which it did . I feel that what I learned from Wen - Do influenced my behaviour throughout this whole incident , from beginning to end . It made me better prepared to assess my surroundings , and it helped me stay calm as people started to leave and the situation became more risky . Before taking Wen - Do I think I would have started to panic at that point , or else gone into denial and ignored the risk . And at the moment of the attack itself , what I had learned in Wen - Do came back instantaneously and instinctively , even though my course had taken place seven years before . The most important thing that came back to me wasn 't any specific technique , but rather , as I said , the ability to take my fear and convert it into anger . And although this attacker was much larger and physically stronger than me - he was about 6 ' 2 ″ , 220 pounds , whereas I am 5 ' 1 ″ - he was completely unprepared for my enraged resistance , and even a few seconds ' worth of it made him decide very quickly that it was better to let me go .