One of the key themes that came out of the last project we did with women who were involved with the child welfare system as parents was on male violence in their lives. It manifests itself in a lot of ways, but one of the biggest is actually fear of calling police if there's violence in the home, because they've seen children apprehended. What we've really seen is that the onus is on women to keep their children safe from violence, with very little in the way of support. We have worked in cases in which the court has mandated visits with the father, and there's been a violent incident during the hand-off. The women actually didn't want those visits to happen, and there was an apprehension of the children because they hadn't been deemed able to keep them safe.
We have had cases in which women have been told to leave the family home. But of course they have no place to go, or they're sent to a transition house that keeps them for 30 days. Again, the onus is on them to keep their children safe and to keep their children away from the abuser.
We've also seen a number of cases where, because our child welfare legislation here in B.C. is forward-looking, women have often been pathologized. Women who've had a history of being exploited by men or who've had male violence in their lives are actually deemed unable to protect their children, because the social workers are worried about their choices in men or the choices they're making around their children.
So the real concerns are largely that women are being asked to make decisions such as to leave the men in their lives. They're not being supported through the family law system. They are not given access to the housing they would need or the income supports they would need or the child care they would need. The onus for male violence is being placed on women, and women are being pathologized.