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The high uptake and positive evaluation of services provided by Ontario's Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centre programs confirms the value of nursing-led, hospital-based care in the aftermath of sexual assault and domestic violence. Ongoing evaluation of such services will ensure the best care possible for this patient population.

Despite the increasing implementation of standardized rape kits across jurisdictions, the medico-legal findings generated by these tools are often not related to positive criminal justice outcomes. Given that there has been no global investigation of the factors that might impede their successful use in cases of sexual assault, we conducted a review of relevant scholarly and "grey" literature from industrialized and less-developed regions. One key theme to emerge from the analysis concerned certain problematic practices and behaviors of professional groups involved in the various stages of the post-sexual assault process. We found that a lack of competence in handling sexual assault cases, contempt for women who have been victimized, and corruption among some forensic examiners, police, scientists, and legal personnel often have shaped the collection, processing, analysis, and use of medico-legal evidence. We discuss recent initiatives and future directions for research that might serve to address these issues.

In the context of expanding preventative strategies for addressing sexual violence, we are witnessing the emergence of an array of new anti-rape technologies targeted at women. These tools, promoted primarily through the Internet, include a variety of apps for mobile phones, signal- and alarm-emitting wearable technologies, and internal and external body devices. Based on analyses of websites promoting such instruments, we critically examine these devices with respect to their possible benefits, limitations, and unintended physical, social, and legal consequences for women. We suggest that unanticipated outcomes may undermine both victims and their cases, those the technologies are ostensibly designed to help.

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