Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, to all the witnesses. I commend you. Your work is so important. I applaud you.
I am going to start with Linda and Jeanne.
I have to tell you, if you haven't read their book, don't read it at night before you go to bed. I'm going to quote a few things because I want to get to the torture part. I think this non-state and state torture is not fair.
I am going to start with a quote on page 15 of your book.
Sara said that there's “'no hope for people like me.'”
On page 27 is a quote from Sara, who said that her “'father was using her for his friends' and her aunt was 'making her sleep with her son and making them do things while she watched.'” She said, “'dogs were used.'”
On page 33, it states that in 1991, “the world did not acknowledge such dehumanizing brutality as non-State torture, as a form of violence being inflicted on girls and women within family relationships.”
It continues on to say, “Sara feared she would Self-harm if she could not” get out. She kept repeating, “'Get it out. Get it out'...[which] meant all the crimes perpetrated against her. She said, 'I know they didn't want me to die because I was their commodity.'"
I could go on and on. There are many quotes that really touched me when I read through a lot of information in your book.
One thing that really shocked me was when she said, “'big people, adults! Ministers, gov't worker, cops, pilots...basement orgies like other people having parties or Tupperware, etc.,' and of being 'taken way back in woods and tortured and raped continuously.'”
The study we're conducting today is on women's mental health, so let me ask you this: If a woman has suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of a family member, a spouse or a stranger and the Canadian legal system does not acknowledge that what she has been put through is torture, what would that do to a woman's mental health?
For example, gang rape has been acknowledged by the United Nations as torture, but the Canadian Criminal Code does not.
What happens to the woman's mental health when she finally has the courage to step up and name her torturer and the legal system says, “No, you didn't experience torture”?
I'll leave it to Linda or Jeanne to answer, please.