Status of Women Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Welcome to the 39th meeting of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Pursuant to the Order of Reference of Wednesday, October 1, 2014, and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, October 30, 2014, the committee is resuming its study on promising practices to prevent violence against women.

It must be said that it is quite fitting that we are meeting to discuss promising practices to prevent violence against women because this week we are observing the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, which is held on December 6 every year. I just wanted to mention that.

I would also like to thank our witnesses who are taking part in this very important study. I would also like to thank the committee members for ensuring that we can conduct this very important study.

This morning, I would like to welcome, from the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada, Bonnie L. Brayton, the national executive director, and Carmela Hutchison, the president.

We also have with us Alia Hogben, the executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.

Joining us by video conference from Calgary, Alberta, is Rekha Gadhia, manager of the Family Services Department, and Beba Svigir, chief executive officer, of the Calgary Immigrant Women's Association.

Each group of witnesses will have 10 minutes. The presentations will be followed by a question and answer period.

I would like to begin with Carmela Hutchison.

You have 10 minutes.

[Carmela Hutchison, President, DisAbled Women's Network of Canada]

Merci. Good morning.

I want to thank everyone for having for having us here today.

I would like to acknowledge the Algonquin people on whose traditional lands we come together here today.

We're here to talk about the very important and serious issue of violence against women with disabilities. We talk about violence against women; I think we should talk about it as a public health issue.

I would like to open with a quote by Ms. Fran Odette from her paper “Ableism – A Form of Violence Against Women”.

Ableism permeates our society; it is a form of violence against self-identified women that occurs at both individual and systemic levels. Ableism defines a woman by her disAbility and focuses on her deviation from the “norm,” rather than on recognizing her individuality and specific sets of experiences. Ableism, sexism and other forms of oppression put self-identified women with disAbilities at increased risk of experiencing a range of violence and create barriers to accessing the very responses that can increase safety and facilitate healing. Policies and procedures need to include ableism as a form of violence and to address it through program audits, supervision, training curricula, and public education campaigns. While concerned about the impact of ableism and audism on men and women, the goal of this paper was to name ableism as a form of violence against women, to increase awareness and understanding about its existence and serious impacts, and to ensure it is on everyone’s agenda.

Violence against women affects us all. Even if we are not directly affected by violence, as women we are certainly taught to fear it. It affects every aspect of our society, from the missing and murdered aboriginal women to the events occurring in our own government.

In our talk today we will explore how violence against women is both an effect of being disabled and a cause of disability. Abuse takes many forms.

Women with disabilities are abused more often. Rather than go into all the facts behind it, we need only look at article 6 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which highlights women and girls with disabilities as being at specific risk for poverty and violence. The abuse is magnified because of the number of people who interact with women with disabilities, the nature of the disability, by the greater number of types of perpetrators we are exposed to, and to more forms of abuse.

Some people’s disabilities put them at greater risk because their socialization emphasizes greater obedience to authority. I hear all the time about how only the lowest form of humanity would ever abuse a disabled person. At this point, I wish to highlight several examples of how the intersection of women, violence, and disability creates a perfect storm of pain and death.

I would like to begin first with the woman with intellectual disabilities from Winnipeg who was brutally sexually assaulted while her caregiver was completely oblivious to the situation because she sat a few rows ahead listening to her iPod.

Victoria Shachtay was a paralysed mother of a six-year-old girl. She lived in Innisfail, Alberta, and was killed by a postal bomb sent from her financial adviser when the family discovered that her money was used up and started to make inquiries. The use of a community mailbox could have proved deadly to several people in the neighbourhood. There is great concern that the elimination of home mail delivery in favour of community mailboxes will become an extra target point for perpetrators of violence against women with disabilities.

Betty Anne Gagnon was a woman with intellectual disability who went to live with her sister. Her sister and brother-in-law fell into addiction and violence. In response to their inability to meet Betty Anne’s needs, she was subjected to a range of beatings, having her mouth forcibly washed out with household cleaners, and made to live in inhuman conditions: a cold school bus, and a cage in the garage with nails sticking out of it. When she died, she weighed 69 pounds. The charges against her family were pled down to failing to provide the necessities of life.

Misty Joy Franklin was living in Prince George when she was stabbed in the neck by her boyfriend Trevor Fontaine, who had a history of violence and was later declared a dangerous offender. Misty became a quadriplegic in 2003. She was 24 years old at the time of the attack and had two daughters. Paralysed and on a ventilator, Misty was living in long-term care, and she elected to stop the ventilator. She died January 28, 2014.

On the first day Bonnie and I began our work together, we had a wide-ranging discussion about many topics relevant to violence against women with disabilities. Of particular concern was the issue of sexualization of young women, cyberbullying, and Internet pornography.

Rehtaeh Parsons died on April 7, 2013, as a result of a suicide following vicious cyberbullying that followed the circulation of a video of her being allegedly raped by multiple perpetrators. Amanda Todd died by suicide on October 10, 2012, when she was lured into exposing her breasts on a video chat that was later circulated on the Internet.

Yesterday on Facebook there was outrage in the women's community about Grand Theft Auto, which depicts women as sexual objects, which players can have virtual sex with and ultimately murder sex trade workers.

Honour-based violence and the missing and murdered aboriginal women are yet another intersection of violence, poverty, and women with disabilities.

Abuse is both a cause as well as a risk factor of disability. Brain injury is also being identified as an emerging issue associated with trauma and abuse, both due to head injury from direct blows to the head and, as flagged by the executive director of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, the sexual practice of strangulation. At DAWN-RAFH Canada we have received reports from women's experiences about detached retinas and hearing damage in association with brain injury and blows to the head.

Some disabilities are actually causes to exclude people from mental health treatment and other rehabilitation programs. For example, you cannot have brain injury rehabilitation if you have a major mental illness. I stand before you as one of those people.

People in mental health saying that one cannot catch mental illness once countered a discussion that mental health is becoming endemic. In reflection, I still hold the belief that you can indeed catch mental illness through violence and abuse. That is the vector of transmission.

The effects of trauma and mental health needs, its relationship to addiction, and interventions needed to assist women with disabilities in these clinical areas, this is only in its beginning stages. In a recent presentation by the provincial chief mental health officer, Dr. Michael Trew, he indicated that trauma-informed mental health care begins by asking “What happened to you?” rather than “What's wrong with you?”

People with disabilities need safety, encouragement, accommodation, and kindness in order to tell their stories. Dr. Trew also talked about a need for patients to teach their doctors about the situation. Sadly, the time it takes to do this is often more than the patient has before they're in crisis or they die. Often, busy doctors do not have time to listen. At best, the disconnect between the mental health needs of people with disabilities and health care providers creates new barriers to forming trusting relationships essential to transforming trauma into empowerment. At worst, the disconnect creates new trauma, new rejection, and new shame when someone has summoned the courage to tell their story one more time, only to be turned away again.

People who return from military service experience operational stress injury and, a term I only heard yesterday, military sexual trauma. Yet women who were abused are diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and very occasionally are given the respect of a PTSD diagnosis. Women's experiences of violence and abuse that did not occur within military operations are viewed obviously in a very blaming and discriminating way, both from a feminist and ableist perspective. Women who were sexually harassed in their workplace are seldom assisted with appropriate response and after care.

We need to learn from the experience of the military to view the injuries suffered by women with disabilities, and indeed all women, in an equal light. There's a paper entitled "Torturing by Non-State Actors Invisibilized, A Patriarchal Divide and Spillover Violence from the Military Sphere into the Domestic Sphere" by Jeanne Sarson and Linda MacDonald that explores this very topic. DAWN-RAFH Canada has endorsed this paper and encourages adoption of its recommendations.

One important stride that was made towards the equality of women with disabilities was the R. v. D.A.I. decision, in which DAWN-RAFH Canada was an intervener, which placed people with mental disabilities on an equal playing field with all other witnesses.

Health equity has to be achieved for people with disabilities. One common area of mental health need that is overlooked is sexuality. Indeed, even its obliteration from women's medical care deepens the level of distress and increases the mental health need. Ableist attitudes surrounding sexuality perpetuate sexual abuse and a lack of proper treatment follow-up amongst women with disabilities.

People with developmental disabilities and mental illness are often forced to choose what services they will have at age 18. If a person with a developmental disability has a mental health need, they may often be excluded from PDD services. Exclusion of women with disabilities from mental health resources actively prevents them from recovering from their injuries.

Society's ableist views on people with disabilities and their portrayal in the media have tremendous impact on the mental health needs of people with disabilities.

It's hard to maintain the struggle to survive, when people constantly view a person with a disability in a negative or shaming light. Unmet needs create sadness and depression whether they're related to the provision of disability supports, such as incontinence supplies or wheelchairs, or the crushing poverty that the majority of our people face.

Ableism, as a form of violence, is seen in decision-making surrounding do not resuscitate orders, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. The current debate on assisted suicide and euthanasia, whether you're for or against, has had a significant and harsh impact on both the individuals with disabilities and our community as a whole.

Alberta Network for Mental Health has been receiving a significant trend of increased calls related to this issue especially in the wake of Robin Williams' suicide.

Ableism, as a form of violence, occurs when someone living with a disability comes to the decision, as Ms. Franklin did, to end one's life and that decision is not considered a suicide that we would otherwise work hard to prevent. Every mental health resource should be aimed at recovery and suicide prevention.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Ms. Hogben, you now have the floor for 10 minutes.

[Alia Hogben, Executive Director, Canadian Council of Muslim Women]

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women is grateful for this opportunity to address the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Violence against women is a complex, yet, simultaneously, a simple issue. If as a society and a country we believe in human rights for all, including equality under the law, then it is a matter of political will to ensure that any violence against women and girls is addressed.

lt is complex because the underlying causes are embedded in the pervasive values of patriarchy, which in turn, underlines so many cultural and religious norms.

CCMW is an organization of believing women whose values are based on Islam and on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We believe that equality, social justice, and compassion are shared values, and we try to implement these in all the work we do. We know that a concerted and cohesive action plan is required and that no one group, whether it be the government or a community organization, can accomplish much alone.

We also know that organizations such as ours are essential, as we implement the government's policies and programs in the communities, and should be seen as partners in addressing violence against women. lt has at times been difficult, when public funds are curtailed and community organizations are unable to implement their projects.

VAW is alive in our world today, not only in faraway places but here in Canada and the United States. We should not be shocked by the recent findings reported by the media of alleged sexual assault on several women by two public figures: Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby. These incidents prove our point that violence is not limited by class, race, poverty, or culture.

ln a recent project funded by Status of Women Canada, CCMW addressed four facets of violence against women: domestic violence, forced marriages, female genital mutilation or cutting, and femicide.

Further along, I will discuss our strong commitment to the use of language when we identify certain facets of VAW; for example, the terms “femicide” and “gender-based violence”.

As Professor Asma Barlas, Islamic scholar, states in our publication:

The heinous practice of “honor” killings is considered Islamic since some of the perpetrators are Muslims but, as the CCMW notes, such murders also take place in other cultures even if we call them by a different name. On that note, I commend the CCMW for opposing the term “honor killings” on the grounds that it amounts to describing a woman’s murder “by the rationale provided by the murderer.” Instead, the CCMW advocates that all murders be categorized “as femicide—the killing of women and girls simply because they are females.

She also notes:

What is also distressing is that although citizenship confers equal rights and protections under the law on women and men, the onus is on women to document their own brutalization...by the violence and by having to find effective ways to secure their own well-being.

In answer to the questions you posed regarding the promising practices and what can we identify as other practices in different programs, I will start with some self-evident truths: the universality of violence against women and girls.

In our publication, we define VAW:

Violence against women exists in every culture, every country, and every community in the world. No one is immune; no one is protected by virtue of their race, skin colour, nationality, religion, age or class. Violence against women can be physical, psychological, and sexual. It can happen in the home, in the workplace, and in the community. It can be perpetrated by intimate partners, parents, children, schoolmates, work colleagues, religious leaders, and governments.

Another self-evident truth is the influence of cultural and religious teachings and practices.

We say that cultural relativism has no place in any discussion of violence against women. However, this is not to deny or dismiss that there may be distinct cultural norms of specific communities that still have a stronger framework of patriarchy. Our organization has, over the years, tried to address the various types of abuse under the rubric of VAW. While we firmly believe in the universality of VAW and its destructive effects on all women and girls, at the same time, we know that there are specific issues within Muslim communities.

The role of religious teachings may not be as pervasive for others as it is for many Muslims. ln every project we have done, we have had to ensure an understanding of Islam that is egalitarian and compassionate, and insists on the equality of men and women. This is education at its best, as we try to dismantle the norms of patriarchy within families and communities.

Canadian Muslim women face barriers when they consider leaving an abusive relationship. Some of these barriers are internal and some are rooted in the community, but some are systemic. These women face unique barriers: concern about losing their cultural or religious identity, significant barriers to accessing services, racism, and a lack of cultural competency on the part of service providers, including the police and the courts.

By focusing on patriarchal norms CCMW is not specifying that these are only present amongst Muslims or other minority groups. We strongly oppose the inflammatory language that is too often used by individuals who should know better and whose support is so essential in fighting against this disease of violence.

lt is dehumanizing and degrading to label certain forms of violence as barbaric when all of it is so. Why are some politicians labelling some practices as barbaric and linking it with immigrants only? Polygamy, femicide, and forced marriages are all present in our Canadian society with one significant example of the Mormon community of Bountiful, which has been practising all of these since the 1950s. Why the blame and targeting of immigrants or visible minority groups? CCMW pleads with all of you to please use the terms gender-based violence and femicide as distinct from honour killing or honour-based violence. These are more accurate and carry no racist baggage, while the others are racist, discriminatory, and make those of us who belong to these communities feel less than you.

Would you please follow these promising best practices. First, ensure that VAW is a priority for Status of Women and not allow it to go below the other priorities that they are setting. Second, ensure that Status of Women works closely with community groups and views them as essential partners in the development of a national plan of action, for example. Practitioners and activists have a vast wealth of experience regarding VAW and methods to address the issues.

Third, ensure that the partnership with community organizations includes women's organizations that represent various Canadian communities, and that close attention should be paid to the elimination of racist and discriminatory language, labelling, or cultural relativism. Fourth, ensure that the government allocates adequate, ongoing financial resources in the fight against VAW. Fifth, ensure that education is a high priority in each community, in schools, in immigrant communities, with the police, and with service providers.

Sixth, ensure that VAW does not remain a separated issue only for women and girls, but includes men and boys so that whole families are educated about the harm of VAW. Seventh, explore the researching of other models from other parts of the world. This will allow us to showcase our successes internationally. Eighth, explore the CCMW model of local chapters and the “train the trainer” model to provide workshops across the country for women, service providers, and other professionals in the field.

Thank you and I look forward to a discussion with you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

Ms. Svigir, you have 10 minutes.

[Beba Svigir, Chief Executive Officer, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The premise of our presentation is that violence against women is a gender issue rooted in power imbalance between men and women in society, globally and historically. It is triggered by inequalities and discrimination and is not limited to a specific group of women. However, expressions of violence and particular forms of violence against different groups of women tend to differ based on social circumstances and environments. Generally speaking, the predominant form of violence against all women is physical violence by a spouse or intimate partner.

We will argue that within the broader context of gender violence, there are unique circumstances that trigger violence against immigrant women. These are related directly to integration challenges and overall lack of social supports for immigrant families.

Immigrants move to Canada predominantly for one reason only, to provide a better future for their children and their families. They are screened by the Canadian government for their language abilities, employment skills, health and well-being, educational levels, and criminal records. However, despite meeting Canadian immigration requirements, and many never having experienced family violence prior to coming to Canada, more than 50% of families served by child and family services in Calgary are immigrant families.

What are the reasons for violence against immigrant women? Based on our experiences at CIWA, there are two main reasons for the violence against them: lack of integration support in the communities where they live, and differences in perceptions of gender equality in Canada and their home country. Immigrant families face integration challenges related to employment, equitable pay, cross-cultural parenting, language barriers, isolation, poverty, and access to community resources and supports. These place stress on marital and family relationships, and cause reversal in roles between husbands and wives and dependency on children.

We find that immigrant women and girls whose first experiences of family violence occurred in Canada, do not have the strategies to cope with settlement and integration challenges; were unaware of laws, rights, and responsibilities in Canada; live in poverty; do not know where to go to access supports; are isolated from the community; struggle with the family reunification issues; and experienced violence or trauma as refugees prior to coming to Canada.

Many clients come from male-dominant cultures, where women are not seen as equals and are treated differently from men and boys. Some women may have experienced violence in their lives, but did not realize that until coming to Canada. Other women may have been aware that they were being abused and that it was wrong; however, there were no supports available for them in their home country.

Conflict arises when the family arrives in Canada because there is a difference between their home country's perception of women’s rights and the rights offered to them in Canada. Immigrant women become informed about their rights and challenge their spouses regarding gender equality or inequality. Women take a more active role in maintaining the well-being of the family because of the integration challenges of their spouses, which in some cases impact the family's ability to move ahead in a positive way.

I’ll now turn to Rekha to talk about the nature of violence.

[Rekha Gadhia, Manager, Family Services Department, Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association]

Thank you, Beba.

To put it in perspective, women and girls receive unequal treatment from their own fathers, husbands and brothers, simply because they're not seen as equals. Without family or friends to turn to for help, women are choosing violence rather than becoming homeless. In addition, women are exposed to spousal abuse not only from their partners, but also their in-laws who stay in the same house, and this abuse can be physical, emotional, spiritual, financial, or sexual, to name a few.

CIWA counsellors have seen cases where their client is abused equally by their husband and in-laws who live in the same home. In May 2014, a Calgary woman and her friend were killed by her husband who she recently separated from, while trying to retrieve her belongings.

Recently, in the news we have seen a growing number of honour violence, femicide cases, against immigrant girls. A Calgary mother from Chechnya killed her daughter because she did not have the ability and support to handle the parental stress in a new country. We're all aware of the Shafia family case. As well, in the early 1990s an immigrant man killed his sister and her husband in a Calgary mall parking lot, simply because the sister had secretly married a man the family disapproved of and deemed her actions as a disgrace to the family name.

Forced marriages are yet another immigrant-specific example that leads to family violence. We are well aware of girls being sent back to their home country by their parents to be married to an older man because the family found out the girl was dating or was having a relationship with a boy. We also know of instances where girls are tricked into going back home for a visit and the family in their home country takes over the marriage arrangement from there. We have coordinated with police to have them intervene and stop the parents at the airport from taking their daughters to their home country.

Finally, the last example that we wish to shed some light on is the hidden violence against women. Hidden violence is due to shame, family expectations, traditions, etc. The best example of this kind of abuse is abuse against senior women who come to Canada as caregivers, homemakers, to help their own children be successful very fast. That leaves them with no money for their own resources and they end in as the most affected segment of the family, specifically when they do not receive any respect from their own grandchildren because of the cultural differences.

Another example is the physical and emotional abuse against immigrant girls by their own mothers, fathers or brothers for wanting more independence and to fit in their schools. They are being perceived as behaving in a manner that is not acceptable by their culture, such as not wearing the traditional clothing or head scarf in school, dating, having a boyfriend, or hanging out with friends.

Many immigrant women do not report abuse because women who ask for assistance from agencies or supports outside the family face ostracism.

Over to you again, Beba.

[Beba Svigir]

We would also like to share some promising practices that we have implemented and evaluated over the years.

The Calgary Immigrant Women's Association is the only immigrant-serving agency in Calgary that has been providing culturally sensitive, customized and clinical services to address family violence in immigrant families. Our programs work in collaboration with all other service providers in the city, the provincial government, and shelters. Over the decades and years, we have enhanced and improved our services to ensure our response is effective and in line with positive integration support. The success rates for immigrant families that come to us are extremely high, due to the fact that our services are holistic and customized for each individual family that comes to us. We are excited and proud to say that the majority of our families have no repeated instances of family violence after they go through interventions provided by CIWA.

This holistic approach includes supporting the whole family, not only women but husbands, children, fathers and grandparents; addressing intergenerational conflict in immigrant families; involving men in the process of parenting and in finding solutions to violence, including boys in gender violence education and similar instances.

CIWA provides 40 different programs and services to immediately address root causes that impede integration, including family violence as it relates to poverty, unemployment, homelessness, isolation, and language barriers.

We provide first-language and culturally sensitive support for families. We collaborate with community partners to provide access to clinical supports on top of what we can afford, to enhance the cultural understanding of front-line staff of other agencies that work with immigrants and to provide accessible programs in the neighbourhoods where immigrant families and women live. We provide programs in 120 community locations in Calgary. We provide the reunification support for families that need that kind of support.

So within the range of customized and holistic supports for immigrant families we distinguish intervention and prevention services for immigrant families.

Under the intervention services, we provide family counselling, in-home counselling—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Svigir, could you go to the recommendations that you would have for the committee in conclusion? You have about one minute left.

[Beba Svigir]

Okay.

In line with the experiences, supports, and best practices we have introduced, we believe that the following recommendations for the policy-makers would provide a more successful integration and higher level of functioning for all newcomers in Canada. We recommend increased investments in preventative services for immigrant families coming to Canada and increased investment in pre-arrival orientation to parenting and family laws in Canada. Currently, pre-arrival services are more focused on providing employment and language support than family supports.

We recommend a more streamlined process to accessing family support service for all newcomers. Less than 30% of our own numbers of newcomers to Canada every year access settlement integration services, yet newcomers don't know what they don't know when they come to Canada. Every immigrant family with young children coming to Canada from anywhere in the world should be advised to access parental supports upon arrival to Canada because that lack of support is the number one predominant reason for instances of family violence for immigrant families in Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

Madam Truppe, you have seven minutes for questions.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome. Thank you for coming and sharing your stories.

I have several different questions. My first one is going to be for Alia from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. It sounds like your organization is doing a fantastic job. I'm from London, Ontario and I know. I work with a lot of different Muslim organizations in London and they do just great work. You know, I love them to death for all they do.

You mentioned that you received—I think you said you received funding from Status of Women Canada for focusing on four facets of violence against women, and you described the four.

How much funding did you receive? Do you recall?

[Alia Hogben]

About $300,000 for two years.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

About $300,000 for two years. Was that recently?

[Alia Hogben]

It just finished in October.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Oh, good. So from your initiatives that you did, do you have a best practice that came from it?

[Alia Hogben]

As I mentioned, first of all, we always make sure that, because we are addressing the needs of Canadian Muslim women, we educate them—as the people from Calgary were saying—that patriarchy is not acceptable either in Canada or within Islam, so we stress that by having an Islamic scholar always work with us. We usually, of course, choose someone who's going to agree with us.

The other thing we do is go out and do workshops. We do them with Muslim women but also with service providers and so on. We've develop a tool that we use. We were in London quite often doing these workshops across the country, Vancouver, and so on, as well.

What we learned was that we do have this tool. Unfortunately we don't have any money left because the project ended, but we would love to have used it across.... It's a very good tool developed by an activist who's a lawyer as well.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Actually, my second question for you, when you talked about the workshops, was about some of the workshops. You just answered one of the questions I had: was it for Muslim women only?

From all the workshops then that you had across Canada, and hearing different feedback, is there something you'd like us to take away from that as a best practice as well?

[Alia Hogben]

I think the best practice is that these women—these are all volunteers who provided the workshops—have to be supported by some paid staff, and unfortunately, that's where the funds come in. We didn't have enough. For example, we have this tool. It was tremendous. We said we would do, I think, eight or ten workshops, and we ended up doing 25 or 29 across the country. So we were willing to work, but I think you can only depend so much on volunteers. As an example, when those workshops were held in different communities, we only gave them $200 to $300 for snacks or a room rental, and so on and so forth.

It would be wonderful... We asked, and Status of Women wouldn't give it to us, for money that would allow us to do this properly. So we have a tool. We'd love to provide more workshops, and the chapter women are willing to work with it, but they can't do it completely on their own.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

It sounds like you did a great job if you did 25 to 29 workshops. Good for you.

[Alia Hogben]

Thank you.

Yes, we did.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Next question is for DAWN-RAFH in regard to the DisAbled Women's Network.

You talked about the physical abuse and sexual abuse of women who are disabled. Have there been measures put in place? Can you describe the best practice that might address the different abuses that they received?

[Bonnie L. Brayton, National Executive Director, DisAbled Women's Network of Canada]

We gave our time over so Ms. Hutchison could frame the issue, but I would say that we also circulated our brief to everybody on the committee. In the brief is a very detailed outline of a project we're currently funded for under Status of Women Canada.

Again, in terms of what's in here I would say that it's really important, particularly for people who aren't familiar with women's disability issues, to take the time to review the brief because you get a very strong sense and understanding of the different types of experiences, because there are many shared perspectives in here, and I think that's really key.

In terms of recommendations, you'll find at the end that we have some very particular recommendations. I'm happy to say the project is still in progress. We're in 13 locations across the country at this point.

In terms of next steps, there are some obvious next steps beyond the project. But I will say that in terms of the particular recommendations, we have program development for women with disabilities and deaf women around information and education sessions, peer groups, family and caregiver support groups, individual and family counselling, a volunteer roster, resource development, and services for immigrants and newcomers, because, again, the intersection of being a woman with a disability and being an immigrant or a newcomer is very significant.

Program development for the broader community becomes really important because, again, in terms of women with disabilities not being in a silo, it's extremely important to understand that how the work becomes effective is in engaging the broader community in addressing the issues of women with disabilities. Supporting women with disabilities at the local level to come forward and participate in that process is quite critical. We're having great success with these projects across the country.

We need policy and funding reforms on a very significant level. Again, in terms of understanding the particular needs of women with disabilities, I will just speak to what deaf women go through on an ongoing basis simply to have their basic needs met because of the lack of available accommodations for them.

I could go on, and there is a very long report here.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

That's okay, and I have other questions too, so that's great. Thank you.

I did want to thank you also for sharing your stories of Victoria, Betty Anne, and Misty Joy Franklin. Those were horrible, tragic stories.

I think you mentioned 13 locations across Canada. When you say that, what do you mean by that? Is it an office set-up, or what is it that you're—

[Bonnie L. Brayton]

No, these are pilot community development projects because this is a community development approach.

One of the things we know at DAWN Canada, and I think most people in the VAW sector recognize, is that change happens on the ground in communities. This is research with a purpose, where we're in 13 locations across the country now—northern, rural, urban—and we look very closely in terms of the kind of work we're doing.

The South Asian women's group in Saskatchewan, for example, has two social planning councils, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, and three YWCAs.

It's a very important piece of research to understand how that change happens and how it happens differently in different communities, to come forward with clear recommendations around best practices, going forward.

This project we're doing through Status of Women Canada, I'm pleased to say, has in fact been recognized by Handicap International as one of the most promising best practices globally. We just learned that earlier this week, so we shared that with everybody yesterday, and given that tomorrow is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, it was quite exciting news.