Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women Committee on Feb. 6th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women.

We are very pleased today to have Diane Redsky, project director of the Task Force on Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada.

Just so we all know, we are expecting one other witness who seems to be delayed.

Ms. Redsky, if the other witness isn't here, then I hope you're okay with taking the full hour, because we'd love to hear from you. This doesn't divide your time at all, but if she is able to come by at any point in the hour, we'll give her 10 minutes as well.

Thank you so much. Welcome again, and please begin.

[Diane Redsky, Project Director, Task Force on Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada, Canadian Women's Foundation]

Do I just start now? Do the 10 minutes start—

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Yes. Your 10 minutes start now, and we all have ear pieces so you don't have to speak very loudly as long as your microphone is on. Later on, if anyone is speaking French, you can just put the earpiece in as well and get the translation, but you don't have to worry about that right now.

[Diane Redsky]

Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge the Anishinaabe territory, which we all have the privilege of being on.

I would also like to acknowledge the women who cannot be here because they currently are living in fear, have no voice, and believe that no one cares. One indigenous woman shared the following quote, which I believe is really important for all of us. She said, "Just try hard not to give up on us like everyone else in the world has."

I am presenting this evening, representing the work of the Canadian Women's Foundation. My key messages are: collaboration, reframing the issue, nurturing indigenous women leadership, and system change.

The Canadian Women's Foundation, for those of you who are not aware, is a national public foundation that invests in the strength of women and the dreams of girls. We do this by raising money to end violence against women, to move women out of poverty, and to build strong resilient girls through funding, researching, and promoting promising practices. I am sharing this because there is an important role for philanthropy in funding organizations, raising the profile of issues facing women and highlighting the opportunities to partner for system change.

The Canadian Women's Foundation targets our support to women and girls who need it most, who are aboriginal women and girls in Canada. We achieve this by engaging indigenous women from across Canada in all aspects of our work.

We are all aware of the many challenges and barriers facing aboriginal women in Canada. Many of us are aware of the research, community initiatives, and advocacy led by aboriginal and first nation leadership, community-based agencies, national organizations such as the Native Women's Association of Canada, governments, and foundations such as the Canadian Women's Foundation.

We all know things are not getting better; in fact, they are getting worse. The root causes of the problem are deep and complex. These root causes of poverty, racism, classism, sexism, and undervaluing of indigenous women exist at significantly high levels.

Just to highlight poverty, there is a strong link, as you are aware, between poverty and violence against women. Of all aboriginal women, and this is first nation, Métis, and Inuit women, 36% live in poverty. This is much higher than the average of 9% for all Canadians.

Racism is a really important part, and the Canadian Women's Foundation is starting to talk about that in a very public way.

The Canadian Women's Foundation demonstrated leadership last summer and wrote a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was written by Margot Franssen, of the Canadian Women's Foundation board of directors, chair of the Task Force on Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada, and a philanthropist in Canada.

This is a quote from her letter to the Prime Minister: “If there were hundreds of white women murdered or missing wouldn't an inquiry be launched? Wouldn't their names and photographs be front page news everyday until answers were found? Wouldn't the community demand that the government uncover causes and create solutions so that no more women were taken or murdered? Aboriginal women deserve no less.”

This letter was written in part because the Canadian Women's Foundation leadership to stop human trafficking in Canada began with investing $2 million of foundation money to provide funding to organizations, conduct research, and bring together 23 experts from across Canada and survivors to participate on a National Task Force on Human Trafficking of Women and Girls in Canada. The result will be an anti-trafficking strategy for the Canadian Women's Foundation and Canada, and it will be done by the fall of 2014.

There are very serious and tragic intersections, murdered and missing aboriginal women being one, particularly for aboriginal and first nation women and girls in Canada. Racism, classism, sexism at its worst results in the most extreme form of violence against indigenous women: human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

The Canadian Women's Foundation in 2012 and 2013 consulted with over 250 Canadian organizations and 150 survivors of human trafficking and learned that girls and women are being trafficked into forced prostitution inside Canada, to Canada, and across Canadian borders.

Girls and women who are bought and sold from inside Canada are often the most marginalized young girls and women, with aboriginal women being at the top of the list.

Many girls in Canada are first trafficked into forced prostitution when they are 13 years old.

Along this continuum, particularly for indigenous women, is the horrifying reality that they are methodically targeted by traffickers when they are teens and young women, their vulnerabilities are exploited, and they become trapped in a life of absolute chaos, abuse, and extreme violence.

It doesn't end there, though. When they are no longer of value to a trafficker, they become the women in the survival sex industry: 40 years old, poor, and dying. Women's bodies are not equipped to handle the physical and psychological trauma of being sexually exploited and trafficked, whether by circumstances or by force.

As part of the work of the Canadian Women's Foundation task force, we are also challenging the assumptions about who is benefiting and who is to blame. We conducted a national Angus Reid public opinion poll last year and uncovered the following: 78% of Canadians agree that girls under the age of 16 are not in prostitution by choice, and 67% of Canadians agree that Canadian girls under the age of 16 are being recruited and trafficked to work in prostitution against their will.

It seems everyone has some knowledge and knows what's happening. So what can be done about it?

One thing the Canadian Women's Foundation is doing is reframing the issue on sex trafficking. The question isn't, why girls are prostituting themselves, but why men buy sex from girls.

We need to address the root causes, including the undervaluing of women by those who harm us. We also cannot move forward without recognizing the systems that perpetuate and create vulnerabilities for aboriginal women. We are the only population experiencing this level and type of systemic discrimination in most systems, including child welfare, education, etc.

I believe it will only be indigenous women's leadership to make these significant changes to improve the lives of other indigenous women, their families, and the communities. In fact we're seeing indigenous women's leadership at the community level, which is how I would like to conclude this presentation.

The courage and leadership of aboriginal women and their remarkable strength can be seen across Canada, in fact, even around this table.

Our Anishinaabe grandmothers are rising and reclaiming their role as protectors of our communities, and this is gaining momentum across Canada.

In the words of one of the Canadian Women's Foundation's founding mothers, “Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it.”

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

That was just wonderful. Thank you so much.

We'll now begin our questions.

We'll start with Ms. Ashton, please, for seven minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Madam Chair, I'll be splitting my time with my colleague Ms. Freeman.

Ms. Redsky, thank you very much for joining us today and for sharing your important work and very important testimony.

I'd like to begin by referring to a message that you brought forward but that we've heard from almost every witness at this committee, namely, the importance of a national inquiry. Whether it's national organizations, women on the ground, or families of missing or murdered indigenous women, we've heard recurring testimony on the need for an inquiry. Along with that is the need for action, the kind of action that we could see in a national action plan.

Would you agree with both an inquiry and the need for a national action plan to end violence against indigenous women?

[Diane Redsky]

Yes. In fact that is what we at the Canadian Women's Foundation, in our work, have expressed strongly.

At the end of the day, it's about uncovering the causes and creating the solutions. Whatever mechanism will achieve this, one that involves women, that involves indigenous women, that involves their families, that involves their community at the grassroots level, that involves multiple partners, is the type of inquiry and national action plan that we would like to see. It's that kind of model, that kind of work, that we know is successful.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

My question follows right from that, actually.

One of the other things we do here a lot is emphasize the need for community-based action, empowering community-driven solutions, including safety plans.

Could you talk about the role the federal government can play in supporting community-driven solutions, what the role should be, how it should be reflected, and how we can help people on the ground find solutions and take action?

[Diane Redsky]

There are multiple roles. Through the work of our national task force on human trafficking.... We in fact have the co-chair of the federal national action plan to combat human trafficking on our task force for that linkage. There are important roles for government to play from a policy perspective, from a funding perspective, and freeing up those avenues for communities to be able to get mobilized on that specific issue.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Following from that, do off-reserve aboriginal women work, can they work, do they want to work in developing these plans? What supports and funding opportunities would be available to help them develop these initiatives?

[Diane Redsky]

Already from our work in going across the country in our work specifically on trafficking, there are lots.... Almost in every large city in Canada, the women are starting to gather, starting at the grassroots level to come together to identify the solutions. I really think it's about all of us being the funding partners, and some decision-making and opportunity to provide support so that we step up as well in supporting those local coalitions, organizations, and women's organizations doing the work.

Part of what we've done through the national task force is as we've been going along fact-finding in the last year, we have also been grant-making. When we're grant-making, we're grant-making in partnership with government. There are natural synergies and opportunities for the private sector and for government to come together to really build a strong circle around the women who are working really hard at trying to raise awareness and address the systems and rebuild their families and communities from the inside out.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to bounce it back to Niki, if there's any time left.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

How much time do we have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

You have three minutes.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Three minutes, great.

Ms. Redsky, you spoke of poverty being an underlying cause across the board. Could you perhaps elaborate on that?

We've had some witnesses, although we would have wished to have many more, who live on reserve and experience poverty on reserve. We've also heard from people in the inner city about the urban poverty that women face.

I'm wondering if you could elaborate on how poverty is so linked to the violence indigenous women face.

[Diane Redsky]

Poverty leaves women very vulnerable in many ways. It leaves them with not enough money to have a safe place to live. That's first and foremost. There's not enough money to provide for their kids. They feel they have no other choice but to get money sometimes in illegal ways. That creates a huge vulnerability. That also factors into women ending up in relationships that are unhealthy, again as a result of not having money.

At the end of the day, it's about those opportunities to give women a hand up out of poverty and the opportunity to have a living wage, an opportunity to sustain their household on their own without having to have somebody else in their life. There are critical intersections between poverty and violence against women. Poverty is the underlying thing in every risk factor for women along the continuum of violence against women, trafficking, sexual exploitation of women. It is an underlying issue across the spectrum.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

What kinds of things could the government play a role in to tackle this poverty, whether it's in terms of housing or employment? What do you think we need to see?

[Diane Redsky]

It's entirely along the continuum, from women having an opportunity for education and employment programs.... The Canadian Women's Foundation has made quite an investment in economic development projects for women who are rebuilding their lives from violence. Those are significant investments across Canada into projects where women are getting the training to be able to get the jobs that are at a living wage. There are resources needed for that. There's policy with housing, as well as welfare rates, the income that women do receive.

It's almost as if they're always behind; women are always behind. They're always living day to day. Many women we met across the country in doing our work on sexual exploitation just want to stop doing that. They want to just get ahead, at least get a head start on something. It literally is day by day. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. It's a really hard cycle for them to get out of.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you very much.

Over to you now, Mr. Dechert, for seven minutes.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Ms. Redsky, I want to welcome you and thank you for being here this evening.

I understand that in 2012 you were a recipient of the Winnipeg YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Award, along with member of Parliament Joy Smith for the work that you did, and continue to do, in combatting human trafficking and sexual exploitation. I want to congratulate you and thank you for all of that great effort.

[Diane Redsky]

Thank you.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

In your opening remarks you mentioned the impact of prostitution on women generally, and especially on aboriginal women, which we're here to study. Can you tell us more about your views on the connection between violence against aboriginal women and prostitution? Generally what do you see are the harms of prostitution for aboriginal women?

While we're on the topic, we all know about the Bedford decision, and we know that Parliament has been directed by the Supreme Court to come up with an alternative over the next year. I'm interested to hear your views and what you think should replace the current provisions that the Supreme Court has asked us to review and replace.

[Diane Redsky]

That's a big question.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Try to get it all in.

[Diane Redsky]

Trafficking and sexual exploitation is about gender, race, and class, and services need to be guided by a women-centred approach and a gender analysis of violence against women, so there are intersections between trafficking and prostitution.

Trafficking, in its legal definition, is forced prostitution when there is coercion, and force is a part of that. What we do know is that we've heard from police agencies across the country that because of the human trafficking legislation, the bar set for evidence, the threshold for evidence, is high, so oftentimes police officers in an immediate situation will fall back on the prostitution legislation when there is a very vulnerable woman who's in a situation where they need to separate and protect that woman or girl.

We know that the vulnerable women and girls across the country are the ones who are aboriginal. It depends, again, on which part of the country you are in, but particularly in western Canada, they are aboriginal women and girls. That's who you're seeing in the visible sex industry. That is who is being sexually exploited on the streets.

We're going to need unique strategies. The problem that needs to be solved is how we create laws that will always protect vulnerable women and girls from sexual exploitation. As the Canadian Women's Foundation, we're working on that answer through the task force, and we'll have those recommendations in the fall. We do know there is significant legal reform that's needed, not only with the trafficking legislation and working with that piece of it, but also policing agencies need tools to be able to intervene at the time. I would like to see that they have multiple tools available to them.

We are taking this position of reframing the issue. Why are men buying sex from girls? Our answers and recommendations will be around law reform, services, and public education awareness. How do we shift that? We're just entering the recommendation phase on our task force at this point, so collectively, we will be identifying those.