The issue of women who have suffered brain trauma is really a very special one. As I mentioned earlier, it's often not diagnosed. These women live with it without realizing they have it. As a result of their behaviour, they can definitely be perceived in a shelter as troublemakers, as individuals with behavioural problems, who don't want to obey the rules and so on.
So these women will blame themselves. They feel it's all due to their attitude, that it's their fault. In addition, women who experience violence often have self-esteem problems. Consequently, it's not surprising that women who already have this problem and suffer brain trauma, particularly when it affects their executive functions, also suffer from a lack of judgment and all kinds of behavioural problems associated with their disability. This happens without them or people around them realizing it. As I mentioned, they often have mental health and drug and alcohol dependency problems, for example. These individuals are victims of violence, women with disabilities they're unaware of.
I have some statistics. For example, a study by Dr. Angela Colantonio states that 40% of women in prison in Ontario have three things in common, not including racism, which is another problem. Her study focused on three things they have in common.
They have three things in common. They have a history of childhood sexual abuse, a brain injury and they're in prison. In Ontario 40% of women have those three things in common.
So we're criminalizing victims. It's mainly that.
There's also something that's related to the health and social fields. We're beginning to learn more about this. We talk about football players, athletes and all kinds of people, but a woman exposed to violence experiences the same thing. The only difference is that she isn't a star. She gets punched, and she's just a woman who has violence in her life.
There's an enormous number of these women. The exact percentage is still unknown, but an estimated 30% to 80% of women living in shelters have suffered brain trauma. I'm not exaggerating. Women and people who work in shelters will confirm that for you. People used to say something was wrong, but it was never named. Now we're starting to name it.