Thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Meseret Haileyesus. I am the founder and executive director of the Canadian Center for Women's Empowerment. We are the only Canadian not-for-profit organization that focuses on addressing all forms of economic abuse and economic injustice for survivors through system change, research and advocacy.
We appreciate being included in this important conversation on coercive behaviour. We know that things are changing quickly, but speaking as a founder and executive director, having as much time as possible to prepare for this appearance not only allowed us to prepare our knowledge, but it was also for our mental health.
CCFWE generally agrees with the finding of the report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in 2021 that criminalizing coercive control could contribute to earlier prevention and intervention of intimate partner violence. However, we doubt that an offence alone can achieve the desired outcome.
Dear members, as you may know, many indigenous, racialized and other marginalized victims don't report less hidden forms of abuse and violence to the police because of previous problematic and traumatizing experiences with law enforcement. While this proposal may help, it leaves many without solutions, while potentially adding to it.
Reports from Australia on criminalizing coercive behaviour shows an increase in misidentifying aboriginal women as aggressors due to the systemic racism among police and the court system. Shockingly, the Queensland domestic and family violence death review found that almost half of all aboriginal women killed by intimate partner violence were previously wrongly identified by police as the aggressors instead of their abusive partners when reporting violence.
As a Black-woman- and survivor-led organization, we strongly recommend that the federal government take a survivor-centred approach to any potential coercive control offence and let survivors with different intersectional realities, such as newcomers, immigrants, gender-diverse people, and indigenous, racialized, disabled, senior and young women, lead. I respectfully urge this standing committee to recommend a trauma-informed, anti-oppressive and feminist lens to any legislation on coercive control if its goal is to validate victims' experiences. The offence must be based on the notion that domestic violence and coercive control are rooted in gender inequalities and are predominantly committed by men against women.
Dear members, economic abuse is a very common but often overlooked form of domestic abuse. It's part of coercive controlling behaviour by an abuser to restrict a victim's financial independence through economic control, employment sabotage and economic exploitation. A lack of access to finance is commonly the main reason that victims stay in an abusive relationship or return to them. They cannot afford to leave. There is also the long-lasting impact, as economic abuse follows victims through poor credit scores, debt and other financial impacts.
Our organization's research, conducted in the Ottawa region in 2021, highlighted that 95% of victims experienced economic abuse, similar to findings in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. In addition to that, abusers demanded that 86% of victims quit their work; 93% of their abusers did not allow them to have their own money, taking away paycheques and financial aid; 90% of victims had decision-making power taken from them by their abusers; 90% of abusers threatened physical harm if the victim paid rent or other bills; and 84% of abusers had built up debt under the victim's name.
These reported tactics serve as crucial indicators of coercive controlling behaviour and must be included in any legal or policy measures. To raise awareness of this often hidden type of coercive control, CCFWE recommends that the government must declare November 26 as a national awareness day.
CCFWE believes the criminal justice system should be the last mode of intervention. It doesn't address the systemic issues that prevent abuse from happening or prevent victims from leaving abuse. Therefore, systemic change is needed before we criminalize coercive control.
We urge the federal government to show its commitment to ending gender-based violence and validating survivors' experience by adequately funding social services; providing additional shelters and affordable housing; increasing access to legal aid; investing in ongoing training and awareness-raising campaigns on the signs and nature of coercive control behaviour; and collecting disaggregated data on various forms of coercive control, including economic abuse.
Once again, I would like to thank the committee members for the opportunity to speak on this important topic.
I also want to congratulate you, Madam Chair, on your appointment to this role. We look forward to working together.
