People have already started coming forward since third party reporting was introduced through The Journey Project, a joint pilot project between the Public Legal Information Association and the NL Sexual Assault Crisis and Prevention Centre.

Third party reporting allows a sexual assault survivor to report a sexual assault to a third party, who will redact personal identifiers and hold on to the information collected until the survivor is ready to go to police and launch a formal complaint.

Executive Director of PLIAN, Kevin O’Shea says service providers are also showing great interest in the program.

One of their goals is to spread the word about the Journey Project and third party reporting and they hope to do that through community organizations and other groups working on the ground. That includes police, doctors and nurses who can pass the word on.