Thank you very much.
Hi, everyone. This is the first time I've used this kind of technology. I'm hoping it's all working well on your end.
I want to start by thanking the committee for exploring this question and taking a look at the challenge of violence against young women. I specifically want to thank you for having included an approach that takes into consideration how we engage men and boys. I think it's an extremely important piece of this puzzle.
There are two things I would like to accomplish over the next few moments with you. One is to tell you a little bit about the work of the White Ribbon Campaign, and the other is to share some lessons from our 25 years of practice doing this work.
We are the only national organization that is working on the prevention of violence against women by positively engaging men and boys. This movement actually began as a response to the Montreal massacre. It started in 1991, as many good feminist conversations do, around a kitchen table, in the home of former NDP leader Jack Layton. Several men were sitting around asking what they could be doing to ally with feminists and women in stopping the violence that was happening in our communities. Twenty-five years later, we continue with a strong vision of a future with no violence against women, and our mission is to continue to engage men and boys in the prevention of violence against women and girls.
What started in 1991 with 100,000 men taking part across Canada has now become an annual campaign, which kicks off this Friday, November 25, and continues through December 6.
We ask those who wear the white ribbon to make a pledge, and we ask them never to commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women. This really simple concept has now spread around the world, first to Europe, then on to Australia and Asia, and then to Latin America and Africa. Today we are the world's largest movement of men and boys working to end violence against women and girls, to promote gender equality and healthy relationships, and to create a new vision of masculinity, with our activities taking place in more than 60 countries worldwide.
When we talk about violence prevention, there are several intervention points. You can tackle it from before the problems begin; you can respond as the problems start; or you can respond at the tertiary level, following an incidence of violence. Our work at White Ribbon really focuses on lessening the chances that men and boys will use violence and that women and girls will suffer from violence. We focus on primary prevention, and we think that is where we can have the most impact.
The way we do our work at White Ribbon has four very strong principles, and these are absolute non-negotiables for us. We work from a human rights position, and we advocate for gender equality. That's the sort of framework and basis from which we begin.
We believe it is crucial not to compete with or divert resources from the support interventions or transition efforts for women and families leaving violent situations.
We also believe that our work has to be gender transformative. It's about challenging the often violent aspects of masculinities, as Walter described in his presentation.
Finally, we do work that is always informed by best practices and a strong evidence base. For us, that is really rooted in a strength-based approach.
The current ways we are working in this field are about education and training, research and best practices, as well as providing technical assistance to our community partners in civil society, in government, as well as community organizations. We also have a social enterprise arm that we recently established. We're taking this kind of work and bringing it to the corporate sector. We worked with Barrick Gold as well as with the University of Regina and McGill University.
My colleague and executive director Todd Minerson serves on both the Status of Women Canada advisory council on the federal strategy against gender-based violence as well as the Ontario round table on violence against women.
We are a really small but effective team of 10 people out of Toronto, and we are currently doing work in Kenya, Vietnam, and Cambodia. We are seeing impacts around the world, so we have a lot of experience globally and locally to draw from. Over the last 25 years we have gained some insights that we hope you will take into consideration as you consider the steps forward for this really important topic.
First, we believe that work with men is necessary. We believe that, as primary perpetrators, as well as our key audience for primary prevention, men have the ability to influence other men and can be engaged in the conversation on how to reduce and prevent gender-based violence. We've seen this really effectively in our partnership with the Toronto Argonauts on a project we did with them called “Huddle Up and Make the Call”, where we saw male athletes come into the classroom and work with students to actually have the conversation about what the leadership could look like.
We know that working with men can be effective. We're trying to gather more of an evidence base and ensure that there's rich data that tells us what looks like best practice, what some of the insights are, and we have just recently wrapped a really incredible initiative with nine other organizations, called a community of practice, with agencies working across the country on this question.
We know that this kind of work also has a positive and transformative impact on the lives of women and girls, but also for men and boys. Every year we have a huge event that starts on Yonge-Dundas Square, where we have about 800 people walk a mile in high heels. It's very interesting to see how men have the experience of kind of asking the question of what it feels like to be a woman in that sense. It's an opportunity to kind of reflect.
Finally, we think there are really interesting innovations and new avenues for asking this question. We know that men want to be allies and want to support and end this violence in their lives. We believe there are interesting entry points around fatherhood, athletics and sports, workplaces and schools, and faith and cultural communities. These all offer up interesting moments for men to step back and think about how they can be part of the solution.
We hear daily about everyday sexism that is faced by people in our communities. Yesterday a statement by MLA Sandra Jensen raised the misogyny and harassment that she faced as a public leader, as another reminder of why we need to do this work and challenge this violence.
I have a little toddler at home, whom I hope to raise to be a strong ally and feminist. We're working to give him the tools to intervene, to name and call out acts of violence. I'm teaching him about consent, to name his body parts, and to enjoy twirling in a dress, but the barrage of toxic gendered stereotypes and the images that are already being thrown at him are stunning. He's already been told that pink is for girls, and to stop with his tears and toughen up. He turns two on Wednesday next week.
We know that this work is needed now, more than ever, and we applaud the efforts of the committee in reviewing and consulting with civil society and experts. We look forward to your next steps and recommendations.
Thank you for letting us speak to this question.