Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Talat Muinuddin, President, Reh'ma Community Services]

Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you for this opportunity to appear before the committee today.

My submission will focus on the cultural barriers faced by immigrant women.

My family, along with community leaders from diverse cultures, established organizations to address the needs of new immigrants: Urban Alliance on Race Relations, Canadian Council of Muslim Women, International Development and Relief Foundation, Vision TV, Women's Intercultural Network, and Reh'ma Community Services.

At Reh'ma, our projects on domestic violence reach out to marginalized, isolated, impoverished immigrant women. We link them with services and community organizations. They initiate and design projects to inform men and women about Canadian laws and develop tools to prevent violence against women.

In every project, we emphasize community education by designing workshops, seminars, campaigns, and information sessions to bring awareness, self-help, and leadership. Our grassroots work informs us about cultural barriers, such as women are expected to maintain and uphold the honour of her and her husband's family; therefore, reporting family violence is perceived as disrespectful and shameful. Women are afraid to report to the police, as in their home country they distrust the police. Women fear deportation, and the abuser may threaten her with deportation in such cases. Women who are abused fear family alienation when they go back to their home country.

Women are unwilling to disobey or divorce their abusive husband because they believe marriages are for a lifetime, and patriarchy is always practised. Families or religious leaders instruct women to make every effort to be with their abusive husbands, whether it is in their best interests or not. Many women would rather suffer in silence instead of speaking up for their rights. We recommend that during both pre- and post-arrival, women should be made aware of their legal rights in the language they understand. They should be given helpline numbers of the agencies and shelters.

We recommend increasing cultural sensitivity training for police and service providers in dealing with women from diverse cultures. As an advocate for gender equity, equality, and empowerment of women, I believe a system needs to support and protect the rights of women who are in abusive situations. Let us not make the mistake of making abused new immigrant women suffer twice by causing them to become unintended victims of new regulations targeting spousal immigration.

I'm glad and thankful that the Government of Canada is taking measures to protect the rights of vulnerable women and not letting them be further abused by their sponsors.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you. I'm afraid we have to move on.

Mr. Opitz has some questions for all of you.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and through you to our witnesses.

First of all, I want to read something from the “Discover Canada” guide. It's under the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship, and the subheading is, “The Equality of Women and Men”. The guide states:

In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings”, female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.

This is something that has been put into all the guides that we have updated in most recent years, especially over the last three or four years.

Ms. Rosenberger, I tell you, you had steam coming out of my ears, but only because of what you said, not how you said it. The way you described these things at the beginning to me sounded very much like human trafficking, or a form of slavery. I didn't serve 33 years in the military to allow anybody to come to my shores and have to endure the conditions that may be worse than where they came from. To me, that is something that is intolerable, absolutely intolerable.

For example, since we just talked about the “Discover Canada” guide, do you have any suggestions on how it could be altered to reflect information that would help vulnerable women most? It's written down here already, but clearly it's not always reaching all the ears, or else it's concealed from the people who actually need to see it. If they don't speak English or French and are unable to understand what's there, they can't act on their rights.

Could I have your comments?

[Katie Rosenberger]

I think taking it one step further, what came to mind for me, when you just read that out, was the definition of spousal abuse. My perception of spousal abuse, as a born and bred Canadian, is different from somebody's perception of spousal abuse when they may come from a country where it is not considered abuse to hit your wife, or it is not considered abuse to use physical violence in order to discipline your children.

One of the suggestions that actually one of our team members came up with was why isn't there some sort of declaration out there? I said to them that there most likely is a declaration, but is it in the language that people can understand? It's not just the language of literal translation, verbatim; it's the language that defines what is spousal abuse. Can you physically take your hand and put it to another person's body?

That would be my suggestion as the first place to start on that.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Go ahead, Ms. Virk.

[Swarandeep Virk, Counsellor, DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society]

Another thing, since you're talking about recommendations, is that when a woman comes here and is taken straight from the airport to the home, she does not access any settlement services. It's only when the abuse becomes extreme that the police get involved, and victims services gets involved, and she gets to these services. These women come to us and tell us that they didn't even know these services existed.

We recently did a focus group at DIVERSEcity, where women told us that before you come to Canada, you know there's a 911 number, but when you go to access services at one place, you're given another number. There should be one centralized number, such as 222 or 333, where people know that this is where they can learn about the rights and laws in Canada.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'm very short on time—we only get about seven minutes to ask questions—but you hit on a point. I was going to ask you about the 911 thing. I'm delighted you got into that.

If I heard you right just now, one of your suggestions is that, for example, if 911 is general emergencies, fire emergencies, violence, robberies, or whatever, perhaps a 222 number could be for spousal abuse or something like this. I think that's interesting.

[Swarandeep Virk]

These are families who are coming here. People don't want to break up their families. There should be something where family or friends can say to them, “Hey, when we have problems, this is the number we call.” There should be a key advocate who will not take you straight to the police, but who will understand your problems.

[Katie Rosenberger]

That also helps to address the issues that many families face towards a lack of trust of the authorities. The stigma of calling 911 and having police come to the house with lights flashing and sirens blaring can be a massive deterrent for many of our clients.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Understood.

[Swarandeep Virk]

Here we're talking about the preventive—

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Ms. Virk, I'm going to stop you there. I'm short on time, and I want to give Ms. Mandani an opportunity.

Ms. Mandani, how do you reach out to women pre-arrival?

[Shirin Mandani]

I would suggest that at the embassy in their home country, when they are issued a visa, at that time they be given something in their language about their rights.

Also, any husbands who sponsor their spouse should be made aware at that time that when they bring a wife into Canada, they are supposed to abide by Canadian laws.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Ms. Darid, I'll ask you the same thing.

How would one reach out pre-arrival?

[Khadija Darid]

There should be a Canadian guide that explains Canadian law to newcomers, and also lets them know what barbaric laws are not accepted in Canada. Newcomers, both men and women, should sign a document and be subject to deportation if they do not respect the rules.

Rather than simply offering language courses, community organizations should also offer information sessions to newcomers, both women and men, on the equality between men and women in Canada. Community organizations should inform them that in Canada you cannot use excessive force on children, for instance.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Do you have a closing statement, Mr. Opitz?

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Sure.

Absolutely, I think the rights and responsibilities have to be respected.

Ms. Rosenberger, I have just one last question for you regarding defining and allowing women to understand what their rights are. Would you agree there might be a program to fully brief them upon arrival without any family members around?

[Katie Rosenberger]

Yes, most definitely. That is something we would like to see happen, some sort of mandatory training on the rights and responsibilities of individuals in Canada as Canadians. That would be something put in place in order to even obtain a permanent resident card. You couldn't do it until you had some sort of training on the laws and rights and responsibilities of people here in Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Sandhu.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you to all the witnesses, in particular Ms. Rosenberger and Ms. Virk.

I know about DIVERSEcity. I'm from Surrey, and they provide numerous services to new immigrants in our community, so thank you for doing all that work. I know you work very hard with the limited resources you have to provide that service.

I have some questions, and I'll start with DIVERSEcity.

What impact does having to wait two years to get their permanent residency have on women? Does that increase risks of violence, or does it decrease risks of violence if they have to wait in that relationship?

[Swarandeep Virk]

The conditional permanent residence for the spousal sponsorship—is that the question?

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

That's the question.

[Swarandeep Virk]

It's the same thing, however the information is given to the woman that these are her rights and responsibilities. If abuse is there, this will not be enforced on them. There is a lack of trust, because the PR card and their status are so important to them. They feel that when they go out this abuse will go out, and then they will report it and they will be deported.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Ms. Mandani, I have the same question for you.

Does this increase the risk to women in violent relationships or does it decrease it?

[Shirin Mandani]

There has not necessarily been any evidence-based research conducted to say how many cases of sponsored spouses being abused, being victims of violence, have been reported. However, it makes the position of women weaker and there is not equality, and then a woman is always under the threat of being deported if she does not obey or listen to her husband.