First of all, I would like to thank you for this invitation. I'm going to start with a brief presentation and tell you about my expertise, in particular.
I've been interested in aboriginal issues and criminal justice since 1985. I am a full professor at the School of Criminology of the University of Montreal. I've explored a number of aspects of aboriginal issues, in particular through work that I've been able to do on the marginalization of aboriginal women in urban areas, more particularly in Montreal. Through a life history, I've traced marginalization pathways.
I've done some work on aboriginal police. I've looked into aboriginal perspectives on social regulation and criminal justice. I have been interested and still am very interested today in potential approaches other than traditional justice. I've done some work on healing circles and sentencing circles. Restorative justice is one of my fields of expertise. I've also started work on the incarceration of aboriginal women. I recently completed a recent project on the experience of aboriginal women who are victims of violence in relation to the resources they have been able to use. Lastly, I am currently a member of a research team, with my colleague Marie-Pierre Bousquet, on the experience of aboriginal women in relation to violence here in Quebec, specifically for the purpose of determining action that may be taken based on the women's experiences. That, in summary, is my background.
I would like to mention that, although some of the projects I just cited did not focus directly on violence against women, it goes without saying that that issues runs through all the projects I have done to date.
My presentation is based on three issues in particular. I should say “our presentation” since, as my colleague said, we agreed to combine our presentations. The first issue is as follows: what is the situation regarding violence against aboriginal women in Quebec? The second issue is: how should we analyze the situation? Let's put the question another way: why are things not improving? The third question is as follows: what action measures would be promising?
My colleague will mainly focus on the second question. In my remarks, I will try to answer the first question. Then I will encroach on the third question. Marie-Pierre Bousquet will also address the third question.
What is the situation regarding violence against aboriginal women in Quebec? I would say at the outset that there is no statistical or qualitative overall picture of the violence experienced by aboriginal women in Quebec. There are studies, but they are scattered and not very recent. Those few studies suggest that violence is not a recent phenomenon. We mainly began to talk about it in the 1980s. Moreover, it is not because we started talking about it in the 1980s that it wasn't going on before that. It does not appear to be a declining phenomenon, quite on the contrary, it seems to be growing, which is of course very disturbing. It is very widespread in the communities, but also in the urban centres.
I draw your attention to the fact that the major challenge in future will also be to deal with what is going on in urban areas, since there has been a major shifts by aboriginal to urban areas since the 1980s. The violence is serious and comes in many forms, that is to say it is physical, psychological and sexual. It is more widespread, but also more serious than among non-aboriginals. It starts earlier, in childhood. It is expressed over a very long period of life. It usually starts in childhood and continues into adulthood. It is a daily occurrence, trivialized and part of a family relationship dynamic, and thus arises between spouses, and it is transgenerational. There are other things to say about it, but let's say that's a summary.
As I mentioned, I conducted a study on the experience of aboriginal women who are victims of violence. We surveyed a number of accounts of experiences of 36 women from various nations in Quebec. Based on that research into the experience of those women and into the various resources that we could use, I was able to make other findings. I'll mention them briefly. I'll obviously have the opportunity to answer your questions more specifically, particularly on the strategies implemented by the women who are confronted with a dynamic of violence, and also on the impact of the resources used.
This is a qualitative study. It revealed, among other things, that one of the problems is that, from the initial outbreaks of violence, aboriginal women tend to adapt to the situation and to really do nothing. That's often an initial reaction, and it's an attitude that is a factor in maintaining the cycle of violence. We also found that all women in our sample used a considerable number of formal and informal resources, some 15 on average, in their life path, during their experience. The average age of our sample of women was 44 years. The main results of these studies who that an aboriginal woman's ability to break out of the cycle of violence, or to remain in it, is related to three interrelated aspects. Those aspects are as follows: socio-demographic profile, victimization profile and use of resources in the event of violence. So these are the types of resources and the chronology of the use of those resources.
Let's briefly mention some other elements of the socio-demographic profile. I would perhaps simply like to mention that the research, based on those 36 paths, enabled us to determine two groups: one group that is doing relatively well, which has managed to break out of this cycle of violence, and the second group, at the time of the interviews, that has remained prisoners of that violence. So our research attempted to understand what differentiated those two groups.
The socio-demographic profile is precisely what differentiates them. Educated women, women who are in the work force do much better. Aboriginal women seem much more resilient than Inuit women. The emotional isolation of women is very important, as we'll see, in taking action, the destructuring of the family cell, and in particular, the loss of parental custody, which may or may not result in the violence experienced, contribute to a context which is not particularly conducive to a break with the dynamics of violence.
As regards the victimization profile, we finally realized that it was less the objective seriousness of the violence than the duration and type of violence that differentiated the women who did better from those who remained within the dynamic of violence.
It emerges that sexual violence and violence that occurs early in childhood are two factors of persistence in the violent situation. What is more, I would say that those two situations, sexual violence and early violence, tend to favour the adoption of violent behaviours in women victims as well. This enables me to mention that violence must absolutely be analyzed in the context of a dynamic. I'm going to place considerable emphasis on the idea that this issue must really be integrated into the dynamic. In addition, we must break the polarized analysis, the classic analysis when it comes to violence against women of the executioner and victim type. Furthermore, the studies very clearly show that men who are violent were also victims of violence during their childhoods.
With regard to the third aspect, the resources used, we realized that the resilient group and the group that persists in violence do not differ greatly with respect to the type of resources used.
All the women in our sample made use of the family, the police, treatment centres, traditional practices, safe houses, and so on. I obviously have more things to say; we'll see based on your questions.
We realized that the most important thing is not so much the type of resource that is used as the manner in which that resource is used. More particularly, one has to look at what goals the women pursue when they use a specialized resource providing help this regard to violence. For example, aboriginal women who use resources for respite or protection are usually the ones who remain in that dynamic of violence because they use it somewhat provisionally, as respite, whereas women who use the same resources with a view to personally taking or taking back control of their lives are the ones who do much better.
I have a lot of things to say, but I'll close with the promising action measures. I'll offer them all together. For me, it's very important that the action measures be implemented on a number of fronts at the same time. I think it's extremely important not to target just one measure, but to consider a whole range of them.
First I would say that we must change our way of understanding the phenomenon of violence against women. I'll give you some details if you have any questions on that. We also must not duplicate non-aboriginal actions and programs in an aboriginal setting; we must not cut and paste. Initiatives that come from aboriginals themselves must be reinforced. It must be understood, and I really emphasize this, that repressive approaches are not constructive. A distinction has to be drawn; we must not confuse safety or exclusion, for example of the aggressor with repression.
The purposes of the justice system must be transformed by innovating through the adoption of various responses. I'm thinking of the courts specialized in domestic violence, for example. We must develop interventions that are inclusive, that is to say that include all the protagonists: spouse, family and community, in particular, through cultural practices. I'm thinking of what I know a little better, the healing circles, restorative justice and justice committees.
I think we also have to act upstream from the problem, not just on the problem, by, for example, supporting and reinforcing the leadership of aboriginal women in the communities, supporting access to key positions, to local authorities such as the mayor's office, etc. We have to fight poverty, develop a harm reduction approach to drugs and alcohol. We have to support aboriginal women's associations, and so on.
I think training should be given on violence to all psychosocial stakeholders who intervene in the community, which includes health staff, police officers, socio-judicial staff, but also teaching staff, for example. Similar training has to be planned in urban areas as well.
In my opinion, we must not standardize the programs and actions that might be adopted; we have to be aware of the specific nature of the communities in order to support those actions. I think we should develop policies in urban areas to combat discrimination, stereotypes, to reinforce the deployment of a support network for aboriginal women in urban areas; that's the great challenge for the future.
I would close by mentioning one very important element. At the political level, we must start soon to eliminate all the discriminatory sections in the Indian Act.
Thank you.