Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate the time. I will try to run as fast as I can.
Mr. Chair, and honourable members, I want to thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee today to study strengthening the protection of women in our immigration system. My presentation focuses on three areas. First is the challenges faced by women threatened by an abusive sponsor and ways to prevent vulnerable women from being victimized by such abusive sponsors, and the consequences of any potential penalties to the sponsor. Second is the potential skills and supports needed by sponsored spouses, especially abused and isolated persons, to succeed independently and make a life in Canada; and third, the unique challenges of forced marriage survivors who are sponsored and the ways to support them better.
First, based on SAWC's experience in the last 10 years, there are many women living in abusive situations who have been sponsored by a spouse in Canada, and I'm speaking strictly of the experience of women. I know men too go through this, but we're talking about women, sponsored by a spouse in Canada, who go through this experience in disproportionately high numbers. Many of them face challenges in accessing services that will protect them from abuse. Some of these challenges include limited knowledge of one or both of the official languages, namely, English and French; a lack of knowledge about the laws in Canada; and a lack of trust and a sense of fear of the police and other law enforcement agencies.
The challenges of sponsored spouses, particularly in instances of women who are abused, is complex and we're noticing that they're even more complex now with the two-year conditional residency requirement. Many of the challenges stem from isolation in a new country, with little or no home community support at the local level. There's also an inequality of status based on length of stay in the country, so the spouse who has lived in Canada longer has a better knowledge and the support of the local community. This creates an environment where this is a scope for manipulation and threat, causing fear, ostracism, and shame.
SAWC's experience also informs us that women facing abuse in some sponsored situations fear losing their children and their immigration status, as they are threatened by their sponsors—who are also their abusers and their families—with deportation or separating them from their children.
In October 2012, the federal government enacted legislative changes to immigration policies and introduced a conditional permanent residency for two years for sponsored spouses in relationships of less than two years and without children. These changes were brought in to control marriage fraud, where some sponsored persons might have used marriage to get immigration. Although there's an exception built into the new permanent residency requirement that is targeted for victims of abuse and neglect by their sponsors and related family members, our experience informs us that victim survivors of abuse, in most instances, are unable to access this exception for the following reasons.
This is due to a lack of access to information in their own language; lack of knowledge of the support systems available; fear of systems, government, and other; fear of the sponsor and fear of losing status because filing a complaint can create a retaliatory response from the sponsor that includes threat of deportation to CIC for misrepresentation—and what I'm saying comes from experience based on the case work we have done—fear of losing any children that might come about within the two-year timeframe; and a lack of financial support and independence to access legal and other supports.
In the case of deportation, there is a fear of backlash from family and community stigmatization in the home country. The possibility of remarriage could also become remote or impossible, depending on the traditions of the community that one belongs to; and there is a high possibility that in the case of deportation of the abuser, the women's family could face threats, abuse, and violence.
Unfortunately, even when domestic violence is reported, women are reluctant to take any actions. In fact, a sponsored spouse requires her husband to sign as a guarantor in opening a bank account or in seeking a credit card or for any of those reasons.
It is our experience that sponsors used the new legislation to control and abuse their victims by threatening loss of status and deportation if they ever complain. It has become our experience that women trapped in such relationships usually have no one to turn to for support other than the abuser or his family. The abusers normally censor and restrict the interactions of newlywed immigrant women with family and friends and isolate them from any support networks.
There is a power imbalance between the sponsored person and sponsor. It has become more evident after the introduction of the conditional permanent residence requirement. In many instances, women endure the abuse in silence. Even when they report it, they're not willing to formally report it. This is our experience. They are less likely to take any concrete actions. SAWC's concerns stem from the lack of safety and the dangerous predicaments for women in these circumstances.
In terms of potential skills and supports, how do we help the women who come in through the sponsored category by virtue of marriage gain a level of economic independence, free of control, that would provide them with a better life with more safety, free of violence? Our experience at the agency informs us that many women coming from abroad as sponsored spouses are abused not only emotionally and physically but also financially. Do you know that women even ask for tokens? We try to fund them to come to the agency, because they don't have a way of getting five dollars to travel from wherever they are. It's as bad as that.
When a marriage takes place in another country, and this is with regard to South Asians, large amounts of money and jewellery are given to a bride as part of her dowry of bridal wealth. This is practised in certain communities. Parents desperate to get their daughters married are prepared to pay this price through the gifting of bridal jewellery, money, or a promise to exchange money for their daughter's marriage. This money and jewellery are in the control of the abusers and their families. It's very common. Unfortunately, this makes sponsored spouses financially dependent on their abusers, and leaves them vulnerable to financial abuse in addition to other forms of control and abuse.
One of the key barriers to a woman's financial security is her financial dependency on the spouse. We have observed that newly sponsored spouses to Canada face many additional challenges to secure employment and training to join the labour market. Some of these are a lack of availability of resources and help centres. In the last—
