I'd be happy to do that. What I was saying is that I think there are two things that need to happen.
There's an existing infrastructure of strength across the country in anti-violence programs. In B.C., they come in the form of community-based victim assistance programs, sexual assault centres, women assault centres, and shelters. There are about 400 of those programs in the province of B.C. itself. In fact, there are 240 under our umbrella alone. In Ontario, I think it's more of a shelter network, but there are sexual assault centres in most of the other provinces. I believe we need to ensure that all of those services are providing, as best as possible, culturally competent and accessible services to aboriginal women.
As well, in addition to that, so that there are many gateways and not just one solution, there should be services run by aboriginal women and for aboriginal women on reserve and through the friendship centres. That's so it's not just one solution, because some women who live in small communities might want to leave and go to town, and there are other women who for many reasons can't, or don't want to, or don't trust mainstream services.
I want to speak for just one second on your question. It also leads into the discussion that was just happening around shelters and someone leaving or somebody knowing or not knowing where the shelter is.
I think of the importance of having a continuum of services. That includes shelters for those women who want to leave, who need to leave, and who need to get to a safe place, which usually involves leaving the community for a short period of time, but the more complicated and more difficult work is in working with women who choose to stay in abusive relationships. This is one of the ways in which women who experience violence are often re-victimized by the system, because police, social workers and prosecutors.... As one of my sisters said, you only get one chance to be medevaced out. What about the other 18 times that a woman leaves? Some studies say it's 35 times before a woman actually leaves.
I think most women will say that they want the violence to stop, but they don't want the relationship to end, so the solution isn't always about getting her to leave. Now, in many circumstances that needs to be the case, and there need to be appropriate professionals, adequately trained people, to be able to assess lethal risk. We need to know the difference between those women who might be killed and those women where there has been a circumstance such that she needs to leave and there needs to be a cool-down period, but she wants to go back to him, for a myriad of reasons.