Thank you very much.
We thought we'd just take the opportunity in a few minutes to set the stage by giving you a little bit of an overview of some of the work and the approaches that we've taken at Status of Women in dealing with the issue of violence against women and girls.
So thank you again for inviting us, and thank you for this work on this study, which will be extremely valuable.
As an agency, as I mentioned, we draw on a variety of approaches. For instance, as a centre of excellence on gender issues, we engage with partners to develop knowledge on a range of violence issues such as human trafficking, cyber-violence, engaging youth in violence prevention, engaging men and boys in violence prevention, and so on and so forth.
We also support organizations on the ground in terms of their ability to take action in their communities to eliminate gender-based violence. Through our commemorative events and our social media outreach, we engage Canadians to become part of the solution to reducing all forms of violence.
I thought I would speak a little bit more in detail to some of the policy work of our agency, as well as some of the projects that we fund.
To begin with, the policy process often begins with the development of issue briefs on both emerging and persistent issues such as sexual violence, and engaging men and boys. These briefs are used to enhance the collective understanding of the issues and they often point us to promising ways to address these issues.
This policy work also involves collaborating with key experts on knowledge sharing and networking events. At various fora, they bring the right players together to talk about how to make progress in advancing gender equality. For example, the agency has hosted events on cyberbullying as well as on online sexual exploitation in the lives of girls. Most recently one of these events was done jointly with the FPT Forum of Ministers Responsible for the Status of Women, and it focused on sexual violence.
My colleague, Justine Akman, will be pleased to provide you further information on our policy work.
As you are aware, our agency also offers project funding to address violence against young women and girls. Three clusters of such projects may be of greater interest to you for this study: those with a focus on the role of men and boys in preventing violence, cyber violence, and campus violence.
With respect to engaging men and boys, we have funded projects to develop the willingness and the skills of men and boys to play a role in eliminating gender-based violence in their communities. The early findings are encouraging and indicate that it must be done in partnership with women and girls. Another finding is that there is an appetite by men and boys to be actively engaged in eliminating violence against women.
Another group of projects that we funded addressed violence against young women on university and college campuses. Through these projects, we have learned ways to address safety for the young women who attend postsecondary institutions. I should tell you that these projects go beyond simply strengthening physical safety measures; they also look at the necessary reforms to procedures, policies and victim services.
As a last example, we are presently engaged in a number of projects that address cyber violence. These projects are demonstrating the growing significance of this issue for young women in Canada and the diverse forms that cyber violence takes: from name-calling to harassment, cyber stalking, spreading sexual rumours, threats, and the non-consensual sharing of sexual images.
Unfortunately, young women in Canada are faced with all these forms of violence.
There's a whole spectrum of issues that are now being examined as part of these cyber-violence projects. For instance, some are looking at how gaming companies can create inclusive environments; others are looking at how platform owners can provide a safe space for women users. Also, some of the schools involved in these projects are looking at developing policies that ensure that students are educated about appropriate online behaviours and that rules are in place to ensure safety.
To conclude, so as not to take up too much time but leave some for questions, this is an extremely brief overview of the ways Status of Women Canada addresses the issue of violence against young women and girls.
There are gaps. There are areas you may have a particular interest in exploring. For example, additional sex and gender disaggregated data would enable us to better understand the nature and the extent of gendered violence in Canada. Further work is also needed to better understand the contexts that contribute to different forms of gender-based violence, such as the role of social media, hyper-sexualization, and even the normalization of violence.
Of course, I know you will have the opportunity to tap into the expertise of stakeholders from outside government. We are confident that they will be able to point you to best practices that they have identified for responding to violence against young women and girls.
In closing, I want to thank this committee again for undertaking this study.
My colleague and I would be pleased to answer your questions.