BC Premier Reveals She Was Attacked As a Child and Urges Other Women to Speak Up

As a young girl on her way to work at her first job, the first elected female premier of British Columbia says she was grabbed by a man and pulled into the bushes.

"There was no doubt in my mind he wanted to hurt me," Christy Clark said in a statement this week. Using her platform as premier, she is sharing her story for the first time after the government passed a piece a legislation that will tackle sexual assaults on BC university and college campuses.

The premier's support for the bill comes on the heels of the Stanford sex assault case that's making waves across North America. After a Stanford frat party, a 20-year-old man sexually assaulted a 23-year-old woman who was passed out and unable to consent. He was sentenced to only six months in prison, though the prosecution asked for six years. The woman's victim impact statement went viral last weekend, prompting calls for the sentencing judge to be impeached.

Accusations that the University of Victoria mishandled a serial sexual abuser who allegedly assaulted four women on its campus prompted the new BC legislation, according to CBC's The Fifth Estate.

Introduced on April 27, Clark said the bill "would set clear guidelines for sexual assault and misconduct" on college campuses. She said the bill, introduced by a member of the opposing Green Party, "was the right thing to do."

Before the Sexual Violence and Misconduct Policy Act passed, BC didn't require colleges and universities to have policies to address sexual assault on campus. "Unfortunately a number of these incidents do occur at institutions across the country on a regular basis," the province's Minister of Advanced Education Andrew Wilkinson said in April.

Clark's assault happened on a sunny day in 1978 in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver. The man came out of nowhere, she said, and grabbed her, pulling her into the bushes and out of sight.

"I remember wondering where he had come from, and why I hadn't seen him. And I remember being very scared," she said.

But when he pulled her down the slope, he lost his grip and she wriggled away. "Once I got out into the sunlight, I ran like the wind to the restaurant," she said. She put on her apron, started work, and never told anyone.

But last week, she shared her story for the first time with female colleagues, and they responded with stories of their own.

"Sexual violence is common," Clark said. "Unfortunately, so is staying silent. Our silence makes it easier for those who wish to harm us. We don't share our stories, we don't think anyone would care much if we did, and then we live with the warped impression that we are alone in our fear and shame."

Follow Hilary Beaumont on Twitter: @hilarybeaumont