For a lot of sexual assault victims, going on with life after an unwanted sexual encounter can be incredibly challenging. In many cases, victims immediately suffer from anxiety and even depression. They may have trouble sleeping and oftentimes relive their experience, making matters worse. For many victims, criminal proceedings do not do enough justice. And in some cases, victims often feel the need to file civil lawsuits against their attackers as a way of seeking justice.
But as a recent NBC report illustrates, some victims never get the chance to seek justice of their own through civil litigation. We can see this through the case of Arya Singh, a 20-year-old University of Pennsylvania student who committed suicide after being sexually assaulted while attending school. The report claims her attacker was never punished by the school and that the attacker was even allowed to remain in the same dormitory as the victim.
Singh’s mother is now suing the school for negligence, claiming that administrators “ignored issues that her daughter was experiencing as a result of the alleged sexual assault.” But the University of Pennsylvania is not the only defendant named in the civil claim. Singh’s mother has also named Amazon and a Thai company as defendants for providing and distributing cyanide crystals that were responsible for Singh’s death.
The death of this 20-year-old woman illustrates what a significant impact a sexual assault can have on a victim and their family, and how important it is for victims and their families to seek compensation through civil litigation. In the end in cases like this, the hope is always that justice is served and that the victim’s family gets what they need to move on from this terrible tragedy.