Status of Women Committee on Nov. 21st, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Now to Ms. Nassif.

You have seven minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I thank all of the witnesses for their presentations.

I think Ms. Obob needs the earphones to hear the simultaneous interpretation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

If you need translation, you can put your earpiece in.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

What are the causes of violence against young women and girls? In your opinion, are the causes of violence against minority women and girls, including women of colour and members of LGBT communities, different from the causes of violence against women in general? If so, what are those differences?

[Awar Obob]

They can be different at certain points in time. It really depends on the violent occurrence at hand.

Of course, they all play a role, hand-in-hand together. It's all very intersected because the violence brought onto the people is usually brought on by those who are from intolerant communities, intolerant backgrounds. It's not necessarily that the violence is brought on by those they know. It does play a part sometimes, but not often.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

In your opinion, has the use of the Internet and communication technologies increased the scope, the nature and the consequences of violence against women and girls? If so, to what extent?

[Awar Obob]

I feel like it has heightened the scope and made it more visible. It has given people a broader view as to what goes on in the lives of young women, and young people of colour. It's not only that you see what goes on in your school or your workplace. You can now see what goes on all across the country and all across communities, like the one you are in, so you have more examples as to what to do and what not to do. I feel like it's a very positive step toward ending the violence.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

What initiatives could the federal government put in place? If you were to suggest initiatives and interventions to the government, what would they be?

[Awar Obob]

I would start with police enforcement and those who work within the mental health area, mental health hospitals, and just hospitals in general, and give them training that not only covers the health of a middle-aged cis white man. Health covers trans bodies and bodies of people of colour. Medically, I know there are a lot of studies that show people of colour have less pain tolerance and handle pain differently than non-people of colour. That is a complete myth, and a lot of their medical research done on that stuff just needs to be updated.

As well, police training needs to be brought in to help deal with the mentally ill, how to actually deal with mentally ill people and people of colour instead of being reactionary. They need to learn how to be proactive instead of reactive, they need more training, and they need to bring in better people to facilitate such training.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

You have two minutes left.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I still have some time left, good.

My question is now addressed to the witnesses from the Native Women's Association of Canada.

According to a report published by your organization in 2015, aboriginal women are more at risk than non-aboriginal women of becoming victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. You already mentioned that the risk of being murdered is eight times greater for aboriginal women. Could you please tell the committee what factors explain the vulnerability of aboriginal women, in your opinion?

[Francyne Joe]

When you look at indigenous women's history, for the longest time we had equal respect between our men and our women. Then we faced colonization. With colonization we had a devaluation of our women take place. This continued with our residential school situation. I grew up on-reserve with my grandparents. The family atmosphere was quite different compared to when my own mother and my uncles came home. There was a difference in society of how women were treated. Over the years, we have seen women become less respected, less accountable to women's councils on different reserves and different nations, and we've seen the impact on our young women now. If our men can't value their own sisters, their own aunts, their own wives, and their own daughters sometimes, then these women fall into depression and despair, and they allow others to treat them without the respect that every indigenous women, every woman across this country, fully deserves.

There are people out there, men and women, who will take advantage of these young indigenous women, who these women feel are treating them with respect, but they're not. It's all about taking advantage of these young women.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

Thank you.

We'll go now to my colleague Ms. Harder for five minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Ms. Rico, the topic at hand for us right now is actually two things. We're focusing on cyber-violence and on campus violence. I'm wondering if you can comment with regards to these two things, cyber-violence and campus violence. Are we seeing these types of violence take place within our immigrant communities, and to what extent?

[Loly Rico]

I don't have statistics about that, but one of the elements that we can see with cyber-violence is more from a human trafficking perspective. On campus, one of the elements that we can talk about with international students is that it is one of the challenges that they can face. Especially with human trafficking through the Internet, there is recruitment either for forced labour or even for sexual exploitation. The retention fee for international students is so high and the hours they are allowed to work are so limited that sometimes they get in a very vulnerable situation, and they can be exploited on campus. I can give you an example of the exploitation. They come as an international student, they meet someone, and they can be either trafficked or sexually exploited because they need to survive to continue with their studies. They are allowed to work only 20 hours a week, while you can work full-time.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you very much, that's helpful.

I would ask the same question to Ms. Joe. What would your comments be with regard to cyber-violence, as well as violence on campus towards women within the aboriginal women's community?

[Marilee Nowgesic]

Francyne would like me to help you with that answer.

In regard to cyber-violence, once again, we're trying to make sure that there's information for the homes where Internet is available—recognizing that there are economic factors with families being able to afford it, so the luxury of having Internet in the home is one consideration. When it is available, though, it's making sure that the parents or the schools have information about Internet safety and putting in the types of measures or parameters so that children are not being subjected to the perpetrators who are going to be watching them over the Internet. It's showing you how to put a band-aid over your webcam and how to shut down the Wi-Fi in the home so that the kids will turn it off and go to sleep and not text until two o'clock in the morning, and therefore jump out of their rooms, that kind of stuff.

As far as campuses are concerned, we're looking at how the education on human trafficking and sexual exploitation is occurring on campus. However, more so, we're working with the Canadian Federation of Students, and the native student associations within the universities and colleges, and making a presence. The provincial education counsellor associations work with the transition of taking high school students from their communities into college and university environments, where, for the first time, they're going to see buses, street lights, people moving, sliding doors and escalators, those types of things. They are dealing with all of that and trying to figure out how to stay safe, how to get back to their dorm, their campus, or their room.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

My last question would be to Awar. With regard to the LGBTQ community in terms of seeing both cyber-violence as well as campus violence, would you be able to comment with regard to the extent to which these things are taking place?

[Awar Obob]

The reach is quite far. Being an LGBTQ person can be very strenuous and difficult on a day-to-day basis. You see violence in your daily life, even if it's just a microaggression, or you overhear a conversation where someone says a homophobic slur or something like that, or you get chased down and bashed by people, or you get doxed online. That's where all your personal information is brought up and posted online. That's happened to a few people in my collective. It's very hard to deal with because then you feel completely exposed. There's just a lot of intersectionality with the violence being online and also on campus.

[The Chair, Conservative, Marilyn Gladu]

All right, that's your time.

We're going to go to our final five-minute round with Ms. Vandenbeld.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I want to thank all of you for being here today.

We've talked a lot about violence against young women and girls, but, of course, intersectionality means that certain women and girls are more vulnerable than others. I think that all of you have brought that to the fore today.

My specific question is for Babely Shades and Awar Obob. I'm representing Ottawa as an MP. As we all know, this has been a difficult week in our city with a number of graffiti racist attacks. I wanted to note something that you said, which is that high public officials need to also show vocal outrage. I was at the March for Solidarity yesterday, and I know a lot of public officials were at some of the solidarity meetings over the weekend, and we are with you. I want you to know that.

[Awar Obob]

Thank you.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I would ask you to elaborate on something you said a couple of times now about microaggressions. We know that violence comes in many forms, but it's the first time I've heard that term, so could let us know what you mean by that?

[Awar Obob]

A microaggression is a very small aggression, usually racial or sexuality-based, or even sexually based. For example, it's when you're talking to people from a different background and you mention that they speak good English or that they're accent isn't that strong. Any way to “other” somebody is a microaggression. Asking black people if you can touch their hair and things like that are microaggressions. There are a lot of examples.