Thank you for giving us the opportunity to present.
I am with the Status of Women Council of the NWT, and although we don't do front-line service, we do a lot of advocacy with women who come to us after they've probably exhausted all other resources.
Aboriginal women who come in for advocacy have indicated to us they are being terrorized in their homes, in the streets, and in the workplace. When they are thinking about and planning on leaving an abusive partner, they face many barriers and challenges in terms of housing, finances, and general well-being. It is important for women to have a safe place to go when they are fleeing from abuse.
Once out, they need lots of supports, both physical and emotional, to regain their power and start over. In Yellowknife we have both shelter and transitional housing, but not all communities have shelters, RCMP, or resources that are easily attainable. This year 314 women and 253 children used the shelter services across the territories.
INAC provides operational funding to a network of 35 shelters used by first nations women who ordinarily live on reserve. In the Northwest Territories most communities have a large demographic of aboriginal women. We have one small reserve that could potentially apply for this fund of almost $56 million, from which first nations communities are effectively excluded because a majority of first nations women of the northern territories simply do not live on established reserves.
In the NWT, five shelters service an area of over 1.17 million square kilometres containing 33 communities. Current shelter programming is limited in meeting the needs of women and children who are struggling with family violence in their homes. This limitation is compounded by a broad range of functioning among the shelters, which means women in some shelters receive more support than do women in others. For instance, some shelters operate with only three staff members and are able to offer only a safe place to stay, whereas other shelters are functioning at a level that allows for the implementation of limited supportive programming for residents of the shelter.
Currently there are very few services that are dedicated to the issue of family violence intervention, prevention, and risk management in the NWT. Rates of violence are high, yet there are few other options for families struggling with family violence.
The rate of reported sexual assault in the NWT in 2008 was more than six times the national rate. Most communities do have one of the following resources based in their community: a nurse, social worker, community wellness worker, and/or an RCMP officer.
With limited support and many responsibilities, the turnover rate is very high. Residents of these small communities also have limited means to travel to another community, meaning that at times they are often not able to access any additional supports or services that might theoretically be available to them.
Eleven communities in the north do not have RCMP and rely on members to come from other communities. Further, aboriginal women suffer from the most severe, life-threatening forms of violence, including being sexually assaulted, beaten, choked, or attacked. In some communities the rate of violence against aboriginal women is as high as 90%.
Council would recommend that funding be increased and that there be policy changes regarding the on-reserve funding so that shelter services and communities in the territories can do their important work of reducing violence against aboriginal women living off reserve. We respectfully request that the committee review INAC policies within the family violence prevention program to address this issue. We need to work on culturally appropriate strategies that include fair and equitable services to all aboriginal women living in jurisdictions that lack services. We need to consider a national strategy to increase awareness and prevention of violence against women and to maximize services for family violence prevention. We need coordination among all levels of government, non-governmental agencies, service agencies, police forces, aboriginal governments, as well as national and other aboriginal organizations.
The Status of Women Council of the NWT co-chairs the Coalition Against Family Violence with the Native Women's Association of NWT. Since 2000 the Government of the NWT has been working in formal partnerships with various service agencies, non-governmental organizations, and interested professionals to develop and implement specific strategies and action plans to improve service delivery to victims of family violence. Currently the family violence action plan phase two is in place.
The Coalition against Family Violence was a partner in the development of the family violence action plan phase two. It also helps monitor the plan, and has begun the work to present further recommendations that will be presented to the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Lyda Fuller, executive director of the YWCA in Yellowknife, is a founding member of the Coalition Against Family Violence. She has been an integral stakeholder in family violence plans one and two, and she will now continue.