This week, a U.S. federal jury delivered a partial verdict in the high-profile trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs. He was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges, but convicted of transporting two women — including singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura — across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. While these charges carry a sentence of up to 20 years, many are asking: Why weren’t the most serious charges upheld?
As a Canadian organization working to end gender-based violence, BWSS rarely comments on cases outside our jurisdiction. But this moment — like the Ghomeshi trial, the Epstein revelations, or the collapse of Weinstein’s empire — isn’t just about one man. It’s about the systems that surround and protect men like him.
The Diddy case makes clear what survivors have been saying for decades:
Abuse doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens with the help of silence, complicity, and institutions that value power over people.
Whether in the U.S. or Canada, survivors are still blamed, disbelieved, or treated as unreliable narrators of their own harm — especially when the person who harmed them is powerful, rich, or famous.
It’s not just celebrity culture. In Canada, Crown counsel routinely decline to pursue sexual assault and intimate partner violence charges, even when women report, even when there is corroborating evidence. The result? Survivors are retraumatized, and the message is clear: violence is allowed.
At BWSS, we support survivors navigating these failures every day. We see the impact of under-prosecution, of media gaslighting, and of institutions that ask, “Why didn’t you leave?” instead of, “Why did he abuse?”
Let’s be clear:
- Transporting women across borders to exploit them sexually is not a lesser crime.
- When someone wields fame to harm, coerce, and control, that’s not seduction — it’s violence.
- And when systems protect perpetrators instead of survivors, that’s not justice — it’s impunity.
- We will continue to advocate for survivor-centred, trauma- and violence-informed justice systems — in Canada and beyond. Because public safety must be designed with survivors in mind.
The Diddy case is an example of why abused women suffer in silence until death hits them in femicide. It’s a true depiction of the failures in the criminal justice system, how abusers build a network of self-.protection & immunity that deters women from accessing justice. I’ve been in this loop for quite sometimes, surviving the post-séparation abuse as a result of these failures is even worse than the abuse itself. It’s a shame.