Status of Women Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

Again, to Ms. Hogben, one of the things we've heard is the difficulty in partnering with government due to lack of access to funding, but also to decision-makers.

Would you like to comment on that?

[Alia Hogben]

I would love to comment on that.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

What recommendation would you like to see in the report?

[Alia Hogben]

It follows up with your question about whether we're part of a plan.

I'll talk about the Status of Women as an example, because multicultural has a closed shop, it seems to us. We're not getting any funding at all from the multiculturalism department. With regard to the Status of Women, we have no problem with the government setting its priorities as to what is needed. The Status of Women is now focusing on economics and jobs and breaking down barriers. Good for them. Fair enough. However, don't then close the door, close the financial help, the resources that you can give us, to fight violence against women. There seems to be no funding being put in there.

Again, I am not denying that you need to do something about employment—it's very important—but for heaven's sake don't lessen the priority of violence against women.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

So the recommendation to the committee would be...?

[Alia Hogben]

This is a huge subject.

When you think about violence against women, people don't realize what comes under that heading, that rubric. You heard from DAWN about what's going on. You heard specifically about immigrants, and you've heard about us. Muslim women come from every strata of society, every nationality. There aren't Muslims who aren't coming in from.... Also, it's any other woman. We'd fight for the right of an Amish woman, or the Bountiful women—anyone. How can you say that violence against women shouldn't be a high priority all of the time?

We've just had all of this attention, and honestly, to tell you the truth, I wish we didn't have all that attention in the paper just now. There's a little sign in the cloakroom saying, “What do you do about a man who says your skirt is so short?” How do you deal with that? For goodness sake, this is all part of violence against women. It's how do you deal with women as equals?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

To the DisAbled Women's Network of Canada, I want to really thank you for highlighting the violence that women in the disabled community face. When I was at the university, I had young women I worked with who had been raped not once on campus, but twice.

What specific recommendation would you make to improve accessibility to our services and housing for disabled women who have experienced violence? What's the number one recommendation?

[Bonnie L. Brayton]

It's that larger discussion again, I think, because we all feel we need to do this, to come back to the idea that what we need to do is to develop a national action plan that's inclusive of all women with disabilities, that understands that each woman has an individual need, and that her supports need to be built around who she is as a person, where she lives. Those intersections become critical, rather than saying I want specific things, because the depth and the breadth of the issues for women with disabilities is enormous.

As the largest minority group in the world, at more than half a billion, that's the number for women with disabilities. It's the largest minority group in the world with the highest rates of violence. I don't think there's any question that, obviously, disability supports are critical.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much.

[Carmela Hutchison]

May I add one thing?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Very briefly.

[Carmela Hutchison]

Yes.

The one thing I would also like to add to this is that we're especially compromised when it comes to shelters, transitional housing, and housing. Housing has to accommodate families: parents with disabilities, where the mother may be disabled and also the children may be disabled. Housing is mostly geared as single one-bedroom apartments, and a lot of our women and their children come into care because of it. That is one huge problem.

Also even in addictions kinds of settings, in our homeless shelters, women cannot stay as long as men. There are fewer beds. Those kinds of things are absolutely crucial in the housing area.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much for that precision.

Ms. Ambler, you have five minutes.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our guests today for such informative presentations.

I was particularly taken by your talk of ableism, Carmela and Bonnie, because that's something I honestly hadn't.... I'm not sure I've heard the term before. I don't think so. I feel like I've learned a lot from your presentations, so thank you for that.

I'm trying to see the issue of violence against women from the perspective of disabled women who are clearly at greater risk, as possibly are immigrant women. I'd like to ask you to elaborate a bit on a couple of the comments you made with regard to sexualization of young women, cyberbullying, and portrayal in the media.

[Carmela Hutchison]

We were very concerned, as I said, when Bonnie and I were first getting to know each other and developing our working relationship, about how the media was portraying young women. When you look at the current music videos and see younger and younger women who are more and more scantily clad, and that young girls are emulating these moves and these behaviours and those sorts of things, it's very concerning because we see people are getting into situations that are not readily apparent.

I had a call from one woman who had engaged in a sexual interaction with someone online, and then when that person referred to the video she didn't realize that her web cam, if video goes out on it, could video capture. A lot of this is that parents, women, and girls, are unaware at how quickly a photo could be taken and transmitted. Very sadly, that led to the two young women who committed suicide as a result of the bullying that happened around that, and the bullying that continues to happen.

When the father of Rehtaeh Parsons went on Facebook.... You know, he's getting comments a year later that are absolutely despicable. That kind of bullying simply doesn't let up. It happens even to our public figures. It happens to ordinary citizens.

That's one thing that we really see as one of the dangers—

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

No, that's okay; we want to hear from you.

It's a challenge, I think, because we want our young people to have healthy attitudes and healthy relationships, and we want that all to start young. But the societal pressures seem to be different today from what they were 20 or 25 years ago. They're more magnified, I think, because of social media.

I'm wondering if you could perhaps tell us how we can help disabled women, what programs there are to help them cope, or even just what advice we could give.

[Bonnie L. Brayton]

I think the important thing to understand is that young women with disabilities want to be included like everyone else. Young women with disabilities definitely want to be included. They're not doing anything any different from other young women out there.

Coming back to my inclusion message, Stella, the inclusive practice message is the one that I carry. Carmela has been very good about pointing out the specific needs of women with disabilities. I keep coming back to inclusive practice, because really we need to see that all women are part of a community and that the larger community understands individual needs. I keep referring back to our colleagues from an intersectional perspective.

Specifically for young women with disabilities, we need to see, for example, the partnership that I described coming out of these projects. One of them is with YWCA Canada. YWCA Canada is an important partner for DAWN going forward, obviously, because if we can support YWCA Canada having inclusive programs for young women with disabilities, then we realize full inclusion while addressing a larger issue for all young women.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

In fact YMCA did come and speak to our committee. They told us about their #NOTokay program, and I think another one, “we can tell and we will tell”.

[Bonnie L. Brayton]

Actually, “we can tell and we will tell” is ours.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Yes. Those are all great.

I think they tie in with some of the things happening today that you mentioned, Alia, with respectful workplaces, sexual harassment in the workplace—

[Bonnie L. Brayton]

We have a positive campaign right now on Twitter, on Facebook, and on all social media. I think that's an important way that DAWN Canada is addressing it—through social media, directly, out there in that conversation.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

That's great.

Thank you very much, Ms. Ambler.

Mrs. Sellah, you have five minutes.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First, I would like to thank all the women who came to give us their presentations.

As you said, we are all women, and we have something in common: violence against women.

My question is for Ms. Hogben.

I know that you are doing outstanding work in the community of Muslim women. In recent weeks, we have heard about the need for education on gender dynamics that at the same time emphasizes violence against women. As we know, women experience violence at a very young age, even in school. We have also heard testimony from female students who spoke about the violence they experienced on campus. This is a security issue.

With regard to Muslim women, aside from the training you provide, do you think a program would help you round out that training? Indeed, I've also heard that you have given training to female Muslim leaders so they can train other women and educate them on violence against women in that community. Could you tell us more about that?

[Alia Hogben]

First, if I may address this, although we are concentrating on Canadian Muslim women we don't do this alone. We feel very strongly that no one group can manage it. We always work with sister organizations whatever we do. We're partnering with.... I could mention all the other organizations that we work with. That's the main thing I want to put forward, that nobody is doing this by themselves.

The other thing is that if we got more money—and we've asked for it and did not get it—we'd like to continue doing some more workshops. We did a program some years ago now with young women in high schools. We had to focus on a few because of the lack of funds. We did it around the GTA area. We went into schools and worked with young women there to build their self-confidence. What had happened at that time.... This is now seven or eight years ago. I don't know if you all remember but in one particular school the young boys were sexually assaulting and picking on young Muslim girls. It was a big horror story at that time. We wondered why they were being picked on. The answer from the young males was that they don't tell. We thought we would go into the schools. We went to seven schools and talked to the young women about building their self-confidence so they could stand up and say that this was happening to them. I don't know how successful it was but we certainly gave it a try.

Any funds to go on working on building self-confidence, particularly in younger women, we all share the need for that.