Thank you very much.
Violence against women happens in all cultures and religions, in all ethnic and racial communities, at every age, in every income group. Immigrant women under the spousal sponsorship program are more vulnerable to abuses or domestic violence due to the sheer nature of the power imbalance in the relationship between them and their sponsor partners. This is compounded by their economic dependence, conceivable language and cultural barriers, controlling attitudes, threats by their sponsor partners who keep them deliberately isolated from the outside world, withholding their passports and immigration documents, for example.
A woman's fear of her children's safety and welfare as well as her uncertainty of her PR status will keep her continuing in an abusive relationship. Furthermore, the lack of knowledge of her legal rights, community, and protective support services adds a further complication and challenge for her.
Refugees who arrive in Canada traumatized by war or oppressive governments are much less likely to report physical or sexual violence to the authorities for fear of further victimization, or even deportation. There are also cases where sponsored immigrant women are abused by extended family members of the sponsor partner.
Breaking the cycle of domestic abuse and violence is very difficult and challenging. Helping the sponsored immigrant woman to decide to walk away from the battered relationship with all the odds against her has proven to be very challenging and complicated as well.
It is important that we recognize there are some systems in place. Canada has well-intended laws to protect abused women and immigration policies to guard against sponsorship frauds; however, the application of these rules has sometimes created unintended barriers for immigrant women in abusive and domestic violence relationships. For example, as soon as the sponsor partner terminates the sponsorship when the immigrant woman leaves the marriage or tries to leave an abusive relationship, she loses her legal status to stay in Canada.
Settlement agencies and transitional house providers are seeing an increasing number of mothers without legal status across the country. There are cases where sponsorship applications are incomplete or the process has not even started and the woman's status has expired. Given that their children's primary residence is in Canada, they cannot leave the country to return to their own country of origin with their children without consent from their ex-partner. This means they must stay in Canada without status.
Our legal system, as a result, would not grant much favour to the mothers without legal status application for child custody or access decisions. Taking the child out of the country or away from an abusive partner would make the mother without legal status run the risk of being accused of child abduction. Even in situations where the children can stay with her under a protection order in a transition house, the father's access to the children in a neutral place, like a transition house, sometimes leads to violence. The women usually have no means to get a trustworthy third person to take the children to a place to enable the father's access to the children.
The YWCA has launched a national campaign requesting CIC to expedite the first stage approval of the legal status for mothers without legal status, or immigrant women leaving spousal abusive relationships who apply on humanitarian and compassionate grounds as they are living in danger. We, S.U.C.C.E.S.S., agree that this is one critical solution that opens doors to improve both the short-term and long-term livelihood of these immigrant women; however, the success rates for these applications are usually low and the whole process to receive legal status, ranging from two to three years, remains too long. Help is not happening soon enough for these immigrant women in crisis. We would like Parliament to strengthen and speed up the legal status issue for these sponsored immigrant women who find themselves in abusive relationships with their spouse.
From another angle, from the perpetrator's side, we agree that the abusive sponsor partner should carry their share of responsibility and punitive consequence of their doings.
The issue is the perpetrators have to see that they are the problem, not their spousal partner. The problem stops with the abuser. It is more practical to really make the perpetrators pay or owe the government for the costs of all the supportive government and social services to help the immigrant women leaving an abusive sponsorship relationship to rebuild their lives and the welfare of their children to economic independence. The government can even make this a condition in the spousal sponsorship application in the event of a spousal sponsorship breakdown in any abusive and also violent situation.
Beyond support services and legal protection for the abused women, it is important to look at the safety and custody of children, crisis intervention by transition houses, continued legal aid services and legal education, medical health services, mental health services, counselling support services, both long-term and short-term affordable housing, settlement services, access to education and language skill training, income assistance, child care services, bridging services for immigrant women—there are too many to mention in here.
I am pleased to learn that currently there are tools being developed by the BC Society of Transition Houses and the AMSSA, Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC, which is an umbrella organization for all settlement services. These will be distributed by the B.C. government ministry to train and assist settlement practitioners in a sector to become more sensitized to the issue, and to know how to address it and refer people to the appropriate resources.
Let me conclude by citing for you two real cases encountered by our agency's front-line settlement workers:
In case one, an immigrant wife from China sponsored by her spouse had been verbally abused since the beginning of the marriage. He set strict rules in the house and if she didn't do things his way, he was verbally abusive to her. She thought that he was the breadwinner and worked hard outside and that she should be able to put up with him. Later she got sick and found out she had cancer. After that the situation became worse. Even after her chemotherapy, her treatment for cancer, when she was still very weak, she had to cook for him and clean the house.
Her parents came to visit from China to help her. They found out their daughter was abused and called the police many times when the abuse increased. But due to the language barrier, the parents of our client could not explain well to the police, and yet the husband, the abuser, who could speak English always told the police, “These are family arguments, no big deal.” So the police left without any actions.
Some of the wife's friends offered help, but the husband refused most of the time. He said taking care of her was his responsibility and if she got help from outside, that meant he hadn't done a good enough job. Friends could only come to her place when the husband was working.
With other people's help, her parents informed the Ministry of Children and Family Development that the spouse beat up their three-year-old son. The ministry sent a social worker for a home visit, but again no further action was taken. Social workers in the hospital were aware of her situation. With their help she was moved to a shelter for a couple of days, but was forced to leave because the shelter could not take care of a sick person like her.
Her parents tried to draw media attention for help, but the story was published by one Chinese newspaper—