On November 10, 2023, CMTO held its first Prevention of Sexual Abuse Symposium. CMTO brought together health system partners (including RMTs, employers, client advocates, and other regulators) to share their perspectives on sexual abuse in Massage Therapy.

By leveraging data, and case studies, participants discussed how CMTO and other partners can collaboratively strengthen sexual abuse prevention efforts. CMTO is developing several actionable items that resulted from the discussions at the symposium:

• A post-event report outlining themes and potential actions;
• A client-focused poster for RMTs’ practice settings that will help set client expectations and increase public awareness of CMTO;
• A follow-up symposium for educators;
• Information for employers and students; and
• A new educational video on boundaries.

During the symposium, CMTO shared some of the key data points about sexual abuse with the event attendees. These included:

• Over a five-year span (2018-2022), CMTO received 1,046 total cases (complaints and reports).Of the 1,046 cases, 315 were allegations related to sexual abuse (30% of all cases) and 189 of them involved registrants. Those 315 cases were related to the following issues:
  • Touching Sensitive Areas (48%) (e.g., breasts, buttocks, upper inner thigh) without the client’s consent.
  • Sexual Behaviour (27%), such as exposing a client’s breasts, or sexual remarks or harassment.
  • Sexual Relationship with a Client (6%) before the one-year cooling-off period.
  • Sexual Relations (6%) including unwanted sexual touching of a client and intercourse or manual penetration.
  • Treating a Sexual Partner (6%), meaning an existing sexual partner or “spouse”.
• There are over 15,000 RMTs in Ontario and approximately 40,000 Massage Therapy treatments take place each day in Ontario. The vast majority of those treatments are performed professionally, ethically and provide therapeutic benefit to the client.
• If you have questions about professionalism or preventing sexual abuse, please contact CMTO’s Practice Specialist at practicespecialist@cmto.com.