Sexuality and Disability Conference in Saskatoon focuses on relationships, sexual abuse

“There’s just an epidemic of loneliness.”

That’s from Karyn Harvey, a psychologist based out of the United States working in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities who is a speaker at this year’s Prairie Sexuality and Disability Conference taking place at the Brick Loft in Saskatoon Wednesday and Thursday.

She said the conference was important because it touches on different aspects of relationships.

“Sexuality, friendship, connection, education, and this is a human right and yet many, many people have been prevented from having that right for many years,” Harvey said.

Inclusion Saskatchewan, one of the organizations hosting the event, said people with intellectual disabilities are often left out of conversations revolving around sexual health and can lead to unwanted outcomes like STIs, unplanned pregnancies and sexualized violence.

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Harvey said the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that people with intellectual disabilities were seven times more likely to be sexually abused.

She’s been working in the field for 35 years and said people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are often so isolated.

Harvey added we’ve come a long way from putting people with those kinds of disabilities in institutions, but said many people are often kept away from their communities and not integrated.

“Part of that vulnerability is not that they have a disability, it’s the lack of education and the desire for that relationship.”

She said she has done a lot of crisis work with people after they had been sexually abused.

“Often they say, ‘Well, he said he would be my boyfriend,’ or, ‘He said he would marry me, so that’s why I went with him’… so the vulnerability was the lack of awareness and really the loneliness.”

Aiden Young is an advocate at the conference who will also be speaking at the event, and said it was put on by Inclusion Saskatchewan, Creative Options Regina and Saskatoon Sexual Health.

He said he’s seen friends being exploited, noting education is needed to better inform people.

“There is information that needs to get out there,” Young said.

He said conferences like this one allows people to interact with those who have lived experiences.