Thank you so much, Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone.
First of all, thank you so much for inviting Sakeenah Homes to come and participate in the status of women committee.
My name is Mashooda-Lubna Syed, and I am here today representing Sakeenah Homes.
Just to give you a bit of background, Sakeenah Homes was established in 2018. We are a registered charity in accordance with the CRA regulations. Sakeenah Homes provides essential support and services to those facing violence, homelessness or poverty. We empower them to become healthy, independent and thriving members of our society. All our work is based on cultural, racial and religious sensitivity. Our primary clientele is mainly Muslim women and children, but we do take in non-Muslims as well if we have the space.
Since our inception in 2018, we have served 30 cities across Canada and we have helped 9,230 clients. Since the pandemic, the need for our services has tripled. We actually have five locations currently and three more opening this summer. Last year alone, we served 1,326 clients in house and 469 remotely—that's close to 2,000 people. Since 2018, we have helped 723 clients who were facing domestic violence cases, and the number has risen in the last year. We provide shelter, food and essentials, legal aid, mental health, education and life skills, employment and reconciliation.
We found that women coming into Sakeenah Homes have unique needs as compared to other communities since a lot of them live in extended family style and therefore they feel that they are controlled not only by their spouses, but also by their in-laws. They face different types of abuse. Due to social and religious constraints, they are scared to report any type of abuse. They are scared of being isolated by the families or the community. They also think they will be deported if they report these cases.
They face spousal dependency, as most of them have either low or no literacy at all. Most of them have low or no life skills at all, no knowledge of budgeting, and so on. We found that a lot of them were forced into marriages where their parents hoped their child would have a better life and that's why they were married off. Language barriers are another problem they face, as well as fear of deportation. They usually have access to no funds at all when they arrive at Sakeenah Homes, so we help them with that as well.
I would like to tell you a real story to help you better understand how we help women. I will be using a different name in order to protect our client.
Our client is Maha. She was a very young 26-year-old who was married off in Afghanistan to a young man who went from Canada to marry her, so she came here. She was in a very devastated state when we first received a call from a distant relative of hers who desperately wanted to help her. She came to Sakeenah Homes in tears and was very emotional. We hugged her and tried to comfort her as much as we could. After a few days, once she felt comfortable in Sakeenah Homes, she started to open up about how she was tortured by her husband, and because of her culture, she could not say a single word to anyone, not even to her parents.
Maha was a graduate of an Afghani university. Her parents had her married in hopes that she would have a better life in Canada. Little did they know that she would become a prisoner in her own home. She was not allowed to go anywhere at all or talk to anyone. Her husband kept all her IDs—her passport, SIN number and health card. Everything was with him. He would take her out once a week just to pick up groceries. If she asked for anything, she would be physically abused. She spoke to her parents always in front of her husband. She had no access to any telephone.
One day, a relative decided to visit the new couple and noticed that Maha looked quite weak and distraught. This relative sensed that something was not right, so he started visiting them regularly. Soon, her husband was quite comfortable with this couple visiting them.
Maha opened up. She was very scared. They made a plan and, finally, her friend came with the police one day and helped her leave. That's how she ended up. Now, today, she's going to school. She's working full time in a restaurant. We're very happy for her. We're very proud of her.
I would like to recommend that shelters like Sakeenah Homes are needed to help women. We need more funding for these types of centres.
I would like to end with a quote from Malala Yousafzai:
I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.
Thank you.