Good morning, everyone. Thank you again for your invitation.
We are pleased to be presenting to you the work that Amnesty International has done since 2004 on violence against women. My name is Béatrice Vaugrante, and I am Executive Director of the Canada francophone section of Amnesty International.
Since 2004, we have been documenting the situation regarding violence against women in cooperation with our partners in the aboriginal groups representing women in Canada and Quebec. Since 2004, we have been calling for a comprehensive national action plan to combat violence against women.
We hail last March's announcement of the actions that were to be taken. However, we fear that there has been a somewhat reduced reading of the violence that is committed against women, a reading that is restricted to the criminal problem related to the terribly high crime rate and the number of women who are assassinated or disappeared. Since we've been documenting this issue and conducting research on these matters, we have believed that the problems are not merely criminal, but that they are rooted in violations of economic, social and cultural rights of aboriginal women. We're talking about health, we're talking about education, we're talking about housing. There is chronic under-funding of services offered to women, which constitutes other discrimination compared to what is found in non-aboriginal populations.
There are obviously short-term solutions regarding the police and protocols, which would make it possible to conduct better searches. That could be discussed in cooperation with the Association des policières et policiers provinciaux du Québec, which, since 2006, has acknowledged the high rate of crime and the need for a protocol. I especially believe that there are a lot of long-term solutions respecting economic and social rights and under-funding. An effort really must be made to examine how this discriminates against aboriginal women.
In my opinion, cancelling the Kelowna accords has done them a lot of harm. We must obviously endorse, support and implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Aboriginal Peoples together with aboriginal groups. We are talking about deeply rooted problems that will take time to solve.
There is the historic multi-generational trauma of the residential schools and the high child placement rate. Today, that rate is three times higher than at the peak of residential school era. Yes, there is violence, yes there are deplorable living conditions, and the children must be protected, but that has a terrible impact on the communities and culture, on their cultural fabric, on the fabric of the community. It is unacceptable for people to place their children. Women will even refuse to report violence so they do not lose their children. We cannot accept that in Canada.
There is also the denigration of the status of women, languages and institutions, the seizure of lands and the failure to conduct consultations on their lands and resources. These are complex, complicated substantive issues, but they must be addressed.
Thank you.