Absolutely. But there is an almost universal issue here that really needs to be attacked. Quite apart from the issue of culture and religion, there can be a tendency, when violence is taking place in a family—inside a circle of people who are related in one way or another—to say, “We will just resolve this ourselves, this does not constitute a crime, it was one of us against the other; we can patch it up, we can overcome this.”
Unfortunately, violence against women and girls, quite apart from immigrant communities, quite apart from the phenomena of polygamy and forced marriage, is still far too common in this country. There are still far too many cases of sexual assault, forced marriage, and early marriage brought forward into the criminal justice system.
We need to make sure that women and girls feel empowered to bring these issues forward; that they are not revictimized; that they are protected; that men, boys, women, and girls speak up and speak out about these issues; that they get the support they need in the community; and that we are, down the road, increasingly known as the country in the world in which violence against women and girls, including these barbaric practices that we're discussing today, do not take place or take place at the very lowest level in the world.
That's our goal. It involves all of us, because every community has cases in which violence of this type, as you would know, Mr. Eglinski, has gone unpunished and un-investigated. We need everyone to make this their business.