First of all, if language blocks are present, then the door of entry to any information, to any choice of action, to any option is automatically barred. That is automatic. She can't get into the CLSC. She can't go to the police station to make a report. She can't call a helpline. She cannot access a shelter, so what is the potential for the woman to access basic information and services? There's a huge inequality there. That overshadows and overlays the inequality we are talking about, gender-based violence that exists because of sex.
In terms of immigrant women who have no status, they have a hard time trying to get welfare. They have a hard time trying to subsist. The law of immigration takes precedence over laws pertaining to conjugal violence, and this is why we're referring to the need for a basic law and a more global vision on how we can deal with conjugal violence.
In a nutshell, that's what it is, and there is very often not too much support at the community level or at the family level. This is why we, as an organization, deal with the victims but we deal with the communities as well, because it's very important for the victims to take a stance and to go back to their communities, and for their communities to support them.
That is the issue for immigrant women. There is a situation of gross inequality, and they feel that in Canada they are strangers in a strange land.