Relax, Lisa. You're among friends. Nobody's judging you.
Evidence of meeting #49 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
Evidence of meeting #49 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
12:50 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
Yes, but we don't usually get to talk.
12:50 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
I can't even drink my water.
12:50 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
12:50 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
No. I want to finish.
12:50 p.m.
Co-manager, Aboriginal Women's Program, Battered Women's Support Services
Resultantly, we know the Canadian state is familiar with the issues relating to violence against aboriginal women, as it is the patriarchal state that initiates, maintains, and perpetuates the objectification, stratification, normalization, racialization, invisibilization, sexualization, marginalization, criminalization, institutionalization, hospitalization, and colonization that in the end may result in the cremation of our women in this country because they are so badly beaten by society.
To us, it is overtly exemplified in the Eurocentric feeling of land entitlement as demonstrated by the public and private spheres of economic and political entities. I am speaking to the rape of our Mother Earth.
Our main concerns at this point are the issues of paternalistic racism inherent in the socio-political institutions and legislation, the lack of education and resources for urban and rural aboriginal women, and gaps in the justice system, together with jurisdictional barriers.
So for our action items, we want action because women make up 50% of the Canadian population. We want the “Ministry of Women and Equality” reinstated in British Columbia and in place in all provinces across Canada. For the record, there is no longer any ministry that has “women” in its name.
We want action. We want women named on every agenda and their voices included in all the planning and decision-making processes of Canada and its provinces.
We want action. We are asking for socio-political attitudinal change.
We want action. We want the focus of women's experience of violence placed on the perpetrator, not the women. Too often women are blamed and pathologized for the violence they experience.
We want action. We want structural change in governments, law enforcement, and other institutions that maintain the status quo of gender inequality.
We want action. Battered Women's Support Services calls for anti-violence services rooted in historical understandings of colonial violence and informed by aboriginal women.
We want action. We support the Native Women's Association of Canada's call for a reduction of violence; a reduction of poverty; a reduction of homelessness and access to housing; improved access to justice; the 2006 Highway of Tears Symposium's call for victim prevention; community development and support; emergency planning and response; and victim, family, and counselling support.
I'm almost done.
Status of Women Canada and the House of Commons have been relatively silent, notwithstanding this meeting. Violence against women has to be a national priority in ending violence on every level of society, with all institutions mobilizing efforts that are on the ground right now. We have been doing this support without support.
Finally, I will repeat the words of Chief Robert Pasco from Merritt, British Columbia. He says, “Whatever the words of your final report and recommendations may be, they will mean little if they are not met with the political will, the knowledge and the ability to achieve their intent”.
Furthermore, in the section on “How to Begin”, in the highlights taken from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, it is said: Change of this magnitude cannot be achieved by piecemeal reform of existing programs and services--however helpful any one of these reforms might be. It will take an act of national intention--a major, symbolic statement of intent, accompanied by the laws necessary to turn intention into action.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Lisa.
Now I'll go to the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter.
Hilla, you are speaking?
12:55 p.m.
Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
I'm here on behalf of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter and on behalf of CASAC, the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.
I trust that if you don't understand my accent, you will stop me and ask me to repeat.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
12:55 p.m.
Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
I think two months ago I was at a hearing on legal aid, and I was completely misunderstood in the first five minutes.
We appreciate the committee's decision to invite women's groups to speak about violence against aboriginal women and about our struggle to end it and achieve liberty and freedom for all women.
Surely in this room we can agree that although women in Canada formally have equal rights, in reality women in Canada, and aboriginal women in particular, do not have equality in their political, economic, and domestic lives. Aboriginal women do not have representational power in the living political institutions in the democracy of Canada: the federal Parliament, the government, and the Supreme Court. Therefore, independent aboriginal women's groups have a crucial role to play in bringing the voice, the experience, and the wisdom of aboriginal women to the political decision-making arena.
We are calling on the Government of Canada to provide appropriate funding--with no strings attached, with no demands, with no conditions--to the only national aboriginal women's group in Canada, NWAC, the Native Women's Association of Canada; and to consult with NWAC regarding any issue that can affect aboriginal women in Canada.
My second point is about policing male violence against women. We know from 35--
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Hilla, could you please lean into the microphone? It's because the people in the room may not be able to hear you as well as we can.
Great stuff.
12:55 p.m.
Collective Member, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter
We know from 35 years of front-line work that men attack women in their own race and down in the racist hierarchy, and that aboriginal women are vulnerable to violence both of aboriginal men in their homes and communities and of all men everywhere they go. The criminal justice system that is consistently failing to protect all women is especially indifferent to male violence against aboriginal women.
Not only that, but cases of criminalizing aboriginal women for acting in self-defence against the attacking men are extremely high.... I want to encourage the members of the committee to find out how many cases of violence are reported to the police by women and compare them to the conviction rates. I assure you that you will be shocked to find out how small is the number of cases that are taken seriously by the police, that are fully investigated, and that are being brought before the courts in Canada.
My third point is about the poverty of women and aboriginal women. It is a well-known fact that aboriginal women are the poorest women in Canada. In the hearing about trafficking and sexual exploitation in front of this committee in 2006, many witnesses pointed out that aboriginal people are disproportionately affected by poverty in Canada. The committee heard that 40% of aboriginal women in Canada live in poverty.
Poverty of women and violence against women are two powerful oppressive forces that feed each other. The Department of Justice Canada recognized poverty as a factor in increasing vulnerability to violence against women. The Public Health Agency of Canada states, “Poverty limits choices and access to the means to protect and free oneself from violence”.
Canada has been criticized by the United Nations for its shameful income assistance rates. Women return to or cannot leave abusive relationships because they are unable to adequately provide for themselves and their children on welfare. A crucial measure to prevent the vulnerability of women to men's violence is in providing economic security to aboriginal women and all women. Our ongoing vision is a guaranteed livable income, but definitely a mid-term measurement is to just raise the welfare rates. They're completely unlivable.
My next point is about aboriginal women and prostitution. One extreme expression of violence against women is prostitution. Later today, we'll hear from the Aboriginal Women's Action Network on their opposition to prostitution and the legalization of prostitution.
We are calling on this committee to adopt the recommendation of the report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women from 2007: “Turning Outrage Into Action”. The report's recommendations are calling on the federal government to target the poverty of women, and the poverty of aboriginal women in particular, and to decriminalize the victims, the women, who are prostituted—they should not be criminalized for being victims of inequality and violence—but to criminalize the consumers, the men exploiting the women's vulnerability, the consumers of prostitution and the pimps.
My last point is about aboriginal children in care. It's so short that I'm doing it an injustice, and I encourage the committee to invest the appropriate time to have hearings about this issue. Less than 5% of the B.C. population is aboriginal, yet more than half of the children in care are aboriginal. According to the MCFD, in the last year there were 4,666 aboriginal children in care. The state uproots aboriginal children from their mothers, paying a fortune for foster care instead of investing this money in the mothers and offering them the economic security that enables them to get housing, food, and child care, which in turn enables them to take care of their children.
So basically my points are these: consult and fund NWAC; end poverty of aboriginal women and poverty of all women, because that's what makes them and us so vulnerable to violent men; end prostitution by targeting poverty on the one hand and criminalizing the buyer on the other hand; and force the police to follow the responsibility of the state to protect women by thorough investigation, by pursuing appropriate charges, and by bringing men to court to hold them accountable for violence against women.
1 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
All right.
Now we'll go to Women Against Violence Against Women. Darla Laughlin.
1 p.m.
Darla Laughlin Aboriginal Outreach Coordinator and Youth Counsellor, Women Against Violence Against Women
Good afternoon. Thank you to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women and to the House of Commons for the invitation and request for Women Against Violence Against Women to take part in this important work.
My traditional name is Singing Thunderbird Child, Twice Standing Woman. I am a Cree Ojibway woman from Peepeekisis First Nation in Saskatchewan. My colonial name is Darla Laughlin. I am currently the aboriginal outreach coordinator and counsellor at the Women Against Violence Against Women rape crisis centre here in Vancouver.
I am here, upon your request, to shed some light on the surmountable forms of violence that are perpetrated against aboriginal women and that we at WAVAW have witnessed. Of course, working in the environment we do, we could speak about the horrific acts of physical, emotional, and mental abuse; about women who have been raped, sexually assaulted, and exploited. This would speak to the various types of violence we see working as front-line workers.
As far as the extent goes, I think the papers speak for themselves. Aboriginal women are murdered, and very recently it seemed that no one noticed. So the “extent”, I would have to say, is death.
I think the important question to be asked is how did we get to a place in society where aboriginal women are so undervalued? What can we do to make change, and where do we go from here?
Let me say that the most significant forms of violence witnessed thus far have, shamefully, come from the government itself in the form of patriarchy, racism, and sexism. The systemic oppression that aboriginals face is by far the greatest threat to their well-being. It has long been the norm for the Canadian government to impose institutionalized systems of oppression, colonialism, and political repression on aboriginal people, particularly our women.
It is our view that unfortunately little has changed. Currently you are all here to further study the violence that is perpetrated on aboriginal women. I would say that it is known what types of oppression and violence aboriginal women face. We have statistics. We now have government saying that aboriginal women have fallen through the cracks.
My question is why do we need to study what we already know? We know that aboriginal women face marginalization, discrimination, racism, and sexism. We know that women are suffering from the effects of residential school and its legacy. Why, then, are women's organizations not being supported to help these women? We have no money for training. We have no money for core funding. Cuts to women's programs continue to rise.
I would like to say that the work completed recently to look into these systems of oppression did not go unnoticed. However, we have not seen any increase in funding for counselling or programming for aboriginal women who face violence. And yet here we are again, studying the issues of violence against aboriginal women.
It is time for government to understand that without readily available long-term resources for women, the picture is not going to get any better. Women must have the option for counselling, safe and affordable housing, and child care in order to truly heal from the effects of violence. Harm reduction is clearly not enough to assist women forward. It is time for real decolonization practices to be put into place for women to have the tools necessary to be successful in overcoming the effects of violence.
Another key factor in the healing of aboriginal women is to recognize the need for true traditional ways of being. Government has a responsibility to recognize traditional healing in the work they do with women to help disintegrate the barriers of mistrust. Women have an inherent right to seek traditional healers to assist in their process, and we, as change-makers, have the responsibility to assist women to be able to find these ways of healing or to bring these traditional values to our places of work. This is not sufficiently being supported by the government at present.
We also bear witness to the dangers women face who are involved in or trying to exit the so-called sex trade. These women are given minimum support, while johns are supported with programming such as john schools. Women deserve to have available more than harm reduction tools, such as condoms and safe injection sites, to provide help.
Laws must be changed and perpetrators should be held accountable and charged to the fullest extent of the law. Canada needs to understand that this is a despicable action that allows women who are the most vulnerable to be bought and sold while living in fear and under threat of death.
Long-term and sustainable life-skills-building programming and counselling are needed to address the issues of women who are sexually exploited. Government needs to understand that sexual exploitation of aboriginal women is not a trade.
Finally, I would like to say that the Ministry of Children and Family Development has scooped and continues to scoop aboriginal children from their families. This is a direct result of the lack of sustainable support from the ministries for housing and social development. Marginalized women--aboriginal women--are expected to pay rent and bills and feed families on moneys that do not meet expectations and are lower than the poverty line.
These two ministries continue to work separately and continue to support the breakdown of aboriginal women and their children. This directly forces women into places of despair, homelessness, and, sadly, the sex trade. What can be more violent or oppressive?
Currently we know that the world view of Canada is rapidly changing in regard to the way Canada portrays its values and the truth behind the non-support of aboriginal women. It is time for the government to step up and make real change for the safety of and quality of life for aboriginal women.
The following statistics are taken from the 2005 report “Researched to Death: B.C. Aboriginal Women and Violence”, by the B.C. government and the B.C. Women's Hospital and Health Centre. Aboriginal women are 3.5 times more likely than non-aboriginal women to be victims of violence. Approximately 75% of survivors of sexual assault in aboriginal communities are young women under 18 years of age. Approximately 50% of these girls are under the age of 14, and approximately 25% are under the age of 7. Canadian aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than other Canadian women in the same age group to die as a result of violence.
This study was conducted in 2005. Since 2006, the Harper government has cancelled funding for universal day care programs and has cut funding for women's groups and organizations' front-line work and violence work for women's and aboriginal women's issues. With these statistics alone, it is clear: funding is needed for programs and programming for aboriginal women who face violence.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our knowledge. We appreciate your time.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
January 18th, 2011 / 1:10 p.m.
Nancy Cameron Program Manager, Crabtree Corner Community Program, YWCA of Vancouver
Thank you.
I want to thank the women who have spoken. I don't want to repeat a lot of what they've said.
I just want to say that I have worked in the field of women and violence for almost my entire career, which has been about 30 years, if not longer. I've come to other committees such as this to speak around issues of women and violence. Unfortunately, over the years not much has changed. If anything, it's probably gotten worse.
I think the longstanding facts, statistics, and information that have been spoken about already, and that most of us know at this table still exist...and now in particular the issues of aboriginal women and violence are more of a concern.
I work for the YWCA Crabtree Corner, which is a women and family program located in the downtown east side of Vancouver. Abuse is interwoven into about 99% of the women who come to Crabtree, and of our clients at Crabtree, I'd say about 70% are aboriginal women.
I want to speak particularly about what we see. I think the other women who have spoken have covered very well the issues of why abuse is so prevalent within the aboriginal women's community. I mean, it's prevalent anyway, and what we see at Crabtree are the things that have been spoken about here--issues of oppression. Poverty seems to drive almost all of it. It's very difficult for a woman to leave an abusive relationship when there are issues of housing, when she's living on social assistance--which has been mentioned, that it's not enough money to support someone, let alone children--when there's a lack of resources; I think there's only one treatment facility in the lower mainland where a woman can go with her child to deal with issues of addiction. So there are many reasons why women will remain silent.
It was also addressed that when the police come to a woman's home when there's been a call around violence, an alarming thing is happening. When the police are called around issues of domestic violence, the ministry comes and children are taken. That almost makes the woman victimized again. She's told that if she wants to keep her children, she has to get this man out of the house. We know statistically, and research shows, that that just isn't going to happen, that it takes a woman several times to leave an abusive relationship, and certainly not on the spot. So we have been working with an increased number of aboriginal families headed by women where the children are being removed because there are issues of violence in the home. Of course, this silences the woman; this creates an enormous barrier for her to be reporting abuse, and she's just not likely to do that. It also increases an already existing distrust of the police and the legal system.
I mentioned, and other women have mentioned, the issue of poverty, the stereotyping of aboriginal women that is very prevalent. I see that in my work, in the people who come to do research in the building, and in the community where I work, this sense that aboriginal women, and the judgments that are placed on them...approaching them as almost invisible people within our society. I see that exemplified over and over and over again, and, as has been mentioned here, within the sex trade, within the judicial system, and within the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
I also see the toll it takes on front-line workers. As I said, I've been doing this for 30 years, and I see how difficult this work gets to be and how hard it is for front-line workers to be doing this work when they're up against a lack of funds.
At Crabtree we've only had our violence prevention worker's position for one year, and it took a long time to get the funding for that, and that came from a private donor. So it's very difficult, even in this day and age, to convince those in positions of authority to be funding this kind of work.
The other thing is the lack of resources. When a woman does come and she is in a situation where there is abuse, the lack of resources, of places to refer her or her children or ways to keep the family together.... I think the inconsistencies between the judicial system and the government about just what constitutes abuse, how to work with abuse, sometimes make our work quite difficult as well.
1:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you, Nancy.
Now we're going to go to the question and answer part. This will allow you to expand on some of the things you have said. Each question and answer is seven minutes apiece, so if you want to get as many questions and answers, you're going to have to be as succinct as you possibly can. And I'm saying that not just to the witnesses, but to—