Bill C-75 is very difficult to wade through, which makes it inaccessible to almost all victims, and particularly women who've experienced violence or sexual exploitation. For the most part, sexually assaulted, tortured, prostituted, and trafficked girls and women have no idea that the government is even discussing these issues at this moment.
We do have some recommendations.
We would like you to develop a consultation tool to allow women's voices to be heard, particularly those impacted by prostitution, trafficking, exploitation, and male violence, so you can incorporate their feedback into the legislation. We know how to do those tools for you. We need you to reach out to these women and girls.
We're asking you to re-examine the issue of legislating non-state torture as a criminal offence. We're asking that you legislate an opt-in process for online pornography, so that, similar to online gambling, only those over the age of 18 can access it. We're asking you to address the systemic failures that discriminate against women, preventing them from either accessing the criminal justice system or remaining involved in it. At the very least, we ask that you stop using the term “gender-based violence” and call it what it is: it's male violence against women, and women have been invisible for too long. The time has come to continue to talk about them.
I'll just get to the final one. We'd like to see a strong appeal by the House of Commons to the Senate to quickly pass the amendments to the Judges Act. It was a unanimous vote in the House of Commons, and it's been stuck in the Senate now for about two years. Women are anxiously waiting to have judges who are trained to address sexual violence.
It is difficult to discuss our problems around male violence against women, oppression, and human rights violations in front of a committee with 11 male members and one woman. That's hard, because as well-meaning as all of you are, as men you have power and privilege that women don't have.
The term “nevertheless we persist” is valid, because women have to fight every day to be heard and to survive and to be believed. I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and to present some facts around trafficking and some recommendations.