Thank you for the eloquent presentations of both of my colleagues here on Vancouver Island.
I'd like you to imagine that you are standing by a river and you see a drowning woman floating downstream. You rush in, pull her to shore, and give her mouth-to-mouth. You then look up and see another woman drowning. You rush in again, pull her back to shore, and call for help because now you see another woman floating down the river. You and your community organize yourselves because there's now a continuous flow of women and also children coming down the river, all in dire need of assistance.
At some point, someone suggests going upstream to find out what is happening, but even as your team heads up the river, you see more and more women and children in the river. You know what? It's not just one river in Vancouver Island that I'm talking about. It's rivers across B.C., Canada, and the world.
The World Health Organization declared violence against women to be a global health problem of epidemic proportions. Their study highlights the need for all sectors to engage in eliminating tolerance for violence against women and in better supporting women who experience it. The World Health Organization also reports that countries that invest in women and girls see overall improvements in their economies. When women are unable to participate fully in an economy that is inherently gender biased, it benefits no one.
I start with these findings to make the essential link between violence against women and our economic security. My community colleague Deborah Hollins, executive director of Nanaimo Family Life Association, submitted a brief that outlines the key influencing factors related to women's poverty, as well as recommendations.
We strongly support her brief and will focus here on the main point, that gender-based violence and women's economic security are intricately linked. We are constantly asked in my work, “why doesn't she just leave?” This question suggests a lack of understanding of gender-based violence. We know that women facing domestic violence are from all socio-economic, educational, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. There is an implicit assumption that the solution in this question is simply for her to leave. I would even go further to suggest that it represents the inherent and pervasive victim blaming women face each and every day in our country.
When a woman is forced to make the choice to leave her home because of violence, she is really being forced to make the choice to step into poverty and to bring her children along with her. Wage inequity, lack of accessible child care, and safe affordable housing are a few of the barriers she will have to navigate. This is on top of her safety concerns, the trauma she has experienced, and the high likelihood that she may not be believed or taken seriously or she may even be blamed.
This is an untenable and agonizing choice for her to make, often alone and while terrified for her safety and that of her children. She is having to choose to stay on the shore where she is being abused or to jump into the river where poverty, uncertainty, and isolation await her. What kind of choice is this?
I have worked with women in and around the river for over 30 years. Haven Society has been doing the same for almost 40 years. We have a solid history of responding to the crisis of violence in our communities with all of its complexities and challenges. The reality is critical. It is an epidemic and it is not getting better. According to Statistics Canada, a woman dies every six days at the hands of her intimate partner. This is the sombre reality of intimate partner violence in our country. If she survives and chooses to leave, she will face untold challenges to secure what should be a basic right for us all: to be safe and secure in our homes and communities.
Decades of research point to the sexist attitudes and beliefs about gender, family, marriage, sexuality, and intimacy as a causal factor supporting the tolerance for violence which the World Health Organization references. These attitudes and beliefs enable gender-based violence to occur, to remain hidden, and to be rationalized, justified, and supported as an individual problem of the victim.
These same attitudes and beliefs are foundational to women having to go into the river. Efforts to address this are desperately underfunded, and services responding to everyone already in the river are overwhelmed by the demand.
We know that prevention, education, and addressing the paradigm that tolerates sexist attitudes and beliefs are key, but these kinds of initiatives of ours have not been adequately funded in any sustainable way. For example, we have an excellent Violence is Preventable program that schools in our community are lining up for, but we don't have the resources to fulfill the demand. Our efforts are constantly being disrupted, as we have to work to secure funding and rely on limited and dwindling grant opportunities. It's very uncommon to find and secure multi-year funding. Transition houses in B.C. have not received a funding increase since 2008, even though the demand for our services continues to grow.
This paradigm of tolerance for sexist attitudes and beliefs forms the foundation of, and is the perfect breeding ground for, violence to flourish. While serious crimes in Canada are decreasing overall, gender-based serious crimes are not. This paradigm has been in place for decades. It will not be quickly resolved. It will take a comprehensive multi-faceted strategy. It will take communities being well resourced to respond to women already in the river, so that communities have the resources to go upstream.
Our government must be bold and courageous and demonstrate leadership now . It's time to choose. Go upstream and address the sexist paradigm that is showing up in our homes, in our streets, in our schools, and in our communities. It is time to create a culture of safety.
To achieve this will require multi-year funding, even multi-decade funding, for social educational programs focused on shifting the current sexist paradigm. It will require safe, affordable housing for families. The housing crisis is not just in big cities like Vancouver and Toronto but here in Nanaimo as well. Our vacancy rates are alarming.
Moreover, we need adequate and sustainable resources for community-based, non-profit organizations addressing gender violence, affordable and accessible child care, and resources for communities to collaborate, create partnerships, and generate solutions together, creating a coordinated social response that builds on the wealth, expertise, and knowledge that already exists in every community.
We also need a guaranteed livable wage for all Canadians.
I thank you for your time and attention.