VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

August 30, 2010
Ontario Council sends comments to the Ontario Women’s Directorate for the public consultation to help develop the first Sexual Violence Action Plan of Ontario. The consultation paper can be found at http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/owd/english/women/svap_doc.shtml

March 14, 2009
Comments at Status of Women and Human Rights Standing Committee on No cherries grow on our trees: A Social Policy Research Paper for the Take Action Project, a public policy initiative to address women's poverty and violence against women, October 2008 by METRAC (Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children), United Way Toronto and Woman Abuse Council of Toronto. (www.metrac.org/programs/info/take.action.report.dec08.pdf )

This research study included two consultations with 50 partner organizations, interviews with 34 of these organizations, qualitative interviews by the project coordinator of 14 women who have experienced poverty and violence and a review of the literature.

• Women's poverty often traps women in abusive relationships (intimate, employment, care-giving and dependency).
• Violence and poverty are seriously impacting women's mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Recommendations are made to the Cabinet Committee on Poverty Reduction (CCPR) with attention to links between women's poverty and violence against women. These are issues related to gender, childcare, education, housing, employment and health (social and income support). Among the recommendations are:

• In order to have the option to leave an abusive relationship, a woman needs childcare in order to seek further education and/or employment.
• Childcare in public schools would allow young mothers to complete high school.
• Women experiencing abuse by their partner are virtually homeless in their own homes. The study recommends:
  • a continuum of emergency shelters,
  • second stage housing and permanent housing, especially in rural and remote areas;
  • existing social housing stock needs upgrading.

• entitlement to paid leave,
• protection against employment termination,
• workplace accommodation to reduce violence,
• clear entitlements to Ontario Works without delay if they must quit their job,
• education programs should be available which are specifically designed to the realities of their lives including violence.
• Critical information that women need about their rights and available services should be readily accessible and timely.

CFUW Ontario Council - Sub-Committee on Violence against Women:
Judie Arrowood (Chair),Ann McElhinney, Rhea Pretsell, Wendy Schrama

September 27, 2008
The Report of the CFUW Ontario Council Standing Committee on the Status of Women Questionnaire on Violence Against Women is released. Thirty different agencies were surveyed throughout the province by 11 Clubs. The general findings included:

• Inadequate funding
• The need for constant reliable funding
• Lack of public awareness
• The need for more protection for the victim from the justice system

Feb. 25, 2008
Communities Working Together to End Violence Against Women, a provincial conference, was attended by Judie Arrowood and Arleen Midriak of the Standing Committee of the Status of Women and Human Rights. The report includes a short summary of the sessions attended.

January 30, 2008
CFUW Kanata, the Zonta Club of Ottawa, and UNIFEM were joint-sponsors of an informative evening about Human Trafficking At Home and Abroad .

January 30, 2008
From the CFUW Ontario Council Pre-Budget Brief:

In the years between 2002 and 2005, there have been 113 violent domestic incidents which involved 148 deaths of which 99 were women, 9 were children, and 48 were men (41 of which were the perpetrators) [Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, Annual Report to the Chief Coroner 2006]

In the last few weeks of 2007, a young woman was allegedly murdered by her father, while another man allegedly murdered his girl friend and her brother.

The report of the Toronto District School Board’s School Community Safety Advisory Panel, chaired by Julian Falconer, has detailed concerns about “gender-based violence, including sexual assault and sexual harassment [that] is occurring at alarming rates.” The report, The Road to Health: A Final Report on School Safety, Jan.2008 states

“While the alarming rates of sexual violence and harassment involving young women and students of diverse sexual orientations demonstrate that these forms of violence are far too common, they are often just treated as “boys will be boys” or jokes. The failure to respond quickly and decisively to incidents involving girls and young women sends a message that young women are not entitled to, and should not expect, protection from gender-based violence in schools.”(p.411)

Violence against women and girls is still sadly pervasive, yet many of the supports are missing.

The Falconer Report, statements made by the Step It Up Campaign and the YWCA Toronto (October 2007) during the 2007 election highlight a continuing need to assist women caught in abusive relationships. While women are the most vulnerable when they are about to leave a relationship, they need support to do just that – to remove themselves and their families from an abusive and possible violent situation. They need access to a wide range of supports, including affordable housing, universal, low cost child care, legal aid, as well as financial and emotional support once they leave the shelter.

The 2006 report of Domestic Violence Death Review Committee noted the devastating impact of the violence on children and felt a need “to address issues surrounding children who are exposed to it.”

CFUW Ontario Council recommends

• Restore core funding, including inflationary costs, to sexual assault centres and women’s shelters;
• Extending funds for legal aid to support legal aid clinics that assist women as well as the family law legal aid certificate program;
• Support for the recommendations of the Falconer Report throughout the province that call for:
  • emotional and physical support for young women affected;
  • educating the perpetrators of violence on socially acceptable behaviour;
  • safe locations for those threatened (including young men);
  • teacher training programs to assist them in recognizing signs of child abuse and learning how to support children caught in abusive relationships;
  • a comprehensive study of safety issues affecting female students to ensure that school policies appropriately address their specific safety risks. This research should also examine policies that involve the reporting of incidents of sexual assault to police; and
• A reiteration of other recommendations mentioned in this brief, such as
  • Affordable housing;
  • Quality. universal, accessible, low cost child care;
  • A minimum wage that can make family poverty history;
  • Income support programs;
  • Accessible education and training.

  Feb. 3, 2006:

  From the Ontario Council Pre-Budget Brief:

  CFUW/Ontario Council believes that violence against women is an urgent priority.

  We commend the Government’s Action Plan to combat violence against women and girls, including criminal law reforms.  However, violence against women and girls persists.

  Transition houses, women’s centres and rape crisis centres provide successful anti-violence.  Yet funding to these organizations continues to BE cut.  Inadequate funding for women’s crisis services and shelters means that meeting the needs of these women is difficult. The Government must take action on the commitments made to combat violence against women and girls and increase its funding for women’s crisis centres and shelters in order to address the needs of women victims of violence.

  Many women do not have the means to access legal help yet funding for legal aid has been reduced. 

  January 14, 2006

  Standing Committees meeting:

  MAKING WOMEN SAFER

  Dr. Joni Seager is Dean of Environmental Studies at York University, and an expert in feminist environmentalism.

  Her talk countered the notion that disasters are gender neutral. Referring to recent natural disasters - in the 1991 Bangladesh flood, the 1995 Kobe earthquake, the recent Pakistan earthquake, tsunami and Katrina floods, many times more women, especially poor women, than men were victims. Why? In many parts of the world women are often isolated in their homes, without communication, responsible for children, in poorly-constructed buildings and are caught without protection or warning. Furthermore, the aftermath of disasters impacts women differently: in the recovery period there is usually a spike in violence against women, women's hygiene needs are less likely to be met, women's employment recovery slower, as women are less likely to be involved in immediate rebuilding and recovery.

  Dr. Seager feels that not only the physical but psychological impact of disasters on women is greater than on men, and should be recognized.

  Sept. 17, 2005

  Standing Committee meeting:

  Will Tomorrow be Better? A discussion about women and violence

  At the morning session members were treated to an up-date on Violence against Women, featuring a panel of activists: Pam Cross, legal director with METRAC, Eileen Morrow, executive director of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, and Ciara Adams, representing Amnesty International.

  Pam Cross identified domestic violence as a symptom of women’s inequality, and read letters from abused women, revealing the problems still faced by victims, even after their abusers are jailed - lack of money, custody problems, etc.

  She discussed the McGuinty government’s Domestic Violence Action Plan, announced in 2004, which is intended to attack the problem in four ways:

  • increased community supports,
  • more training of judges and police, prevention, and justice reform.
  • changes to the Family Law Act, and
  • more funds were to be allocated.

  Since then, nothing has happened. Dollars allocated to the program were funds that had been announced previously - there were no new funds; there was no action on child custody, and use of a promised risk assessment tool promised for women in abusive relationships has been severely limited on being challenged by defense lawyers.

  An August 2005 paper of the Ontario government urges improvement of courts and laws to improve women’s access to justice and pressuring the federal government to increase legal aid funding. Ms. Cross feels that there are too few specifics, too little involvement by stakeholders, and not enough in the way of a gender specific action plan.

  Eileen Morrow echoed Ms. Cross’ disappointment with the Action Plan. She feels that women’s voices are being sidelined, and that the funding promised is not only not new - and some is being diverted from Education - but does not cover the cuts previously made.

  She disagrees strongly with the Plan’s suggestion that more funding for shelters come from community fundraising by shelters themselves and women’s organizations, which can lead to competition among shelters for support. She feels that the Government needs to maintain the responsibility for funding because ultimately it is responsible for making sure that services are equal throughout the province. Her central plea is for more new funding: costs are rising sharply, and processes are increasingly more complex.

  Ciara Adams described Amnesty International’s worldwide campaign against Violence against Women, which it sees as a human rights issue. She focused particularly on AI’s 2004 Canadian report, Stolen Sisters, dealing with violence against indigenous women in urban settings. It calls for governments to recognize the seriousness of the problem, to do more to protect women, to improve training of police and judges, and address the social factors that lead to indigenous women’s vulnerability.

  Amnesty has also started 10,000 Voices, a campaign to stop violence against women around the world and has prepared information kits that are available through their website. www.amnesty.ca

  For more information:
  Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses                                     www.oaith.ca
  Ontario Women’s Directorate                                                        www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/owd
  Status of Women Canada                                                                         www.swc-cfc.ga.ca
  Amnesty International (Canada)                                                                       www.amnesty.ca
  Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence against women and children  www.metrac.org

                          From the notes of Laura Machan and Peggy Pinkerton