Great. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the committee for this opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Erin Whitmore. I am the executive director of the Ending Violence Association of Canada.
The Ending Violence Association of Canada is a national organization that brings together provincial and territorial gender-based violence networks and organizations from across the country to identify and implement the systemic changes necessary to end gender-based violence.
We echo the many excellent recommendations already put forward to the committee in previous sessions. We want to underline the emphasis that previous witnesses have put on the need for a whole-of-government, cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional approach to addressing gender-based violence. This approach could be accomplished through the national action plan on violence against women and gender-based violence.
As a national organization, the Ending Violence Association of Canada has the opportunity to hear from its member organizations about the similarities and disparities in services and supports across the country. We are particularly attuned to the ways in which these inconsistencies are most deeply felt by those most marginalized. As one of over 40 organizations and advocates that contributed to the development of the road map for the national action plan report, which I understand the committee has already received from Women's Shelters Canada, we want to urge the committee to promote timely action on the resourcing and implementation of the national action plan and the 100 recommendations already set out in this report.
The national action plan is more than a tool for addressing the patchwork of services that exist for survivors. It is a framework that has the potential to tackle the root causes of gender-based violence and lessen the systemic inequalities that allow gender-based violence to happen. In addition, we would like to put forward recommendations in two areas that our organization is particularly focused on.
First of all, we would like to recommend that the committee recognize sexual violence and the expertise of sexual assault support centres as an important area to include within its study on domestic and intimate partner violence. Acts of sexualized violence are one tactic of abuse occurring within the context of dating violence, domestic and intimate partner violence, and family violence.
While 30% of women report experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime, the majority of those will be victimized by someone they know. Sexual assault is the third-most reported type of violence within relationships after physical assault and threatening behaviour, and 20% of women whose intimate partners commit sexual violence against them report experiencing this violence monthly or more within the past 12 months. This is a finding that is particularly troubling given the severity of this violence.
The impacts associated with sexual violence require specialized supports and responses. However, the distinct needs of sexual violence survivors can be overlooked in broader discussions about intimate partner and domestic violence. In addition to the network of shelters and transition houses that provide vital services to survivors across the country, there is also an extensive network of community-based sexual assault centres that provide crisis and long-term counselling, prevention and education. Community-based sexual assault centres are a central part of a support system available to survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence. However, like shelters and transition houses, these organizations have long been facing funding constraints that make it increasingly difficult to meet the demand for services.
For these reasons, we would encourage the committee to include consideration of the distinct needs of sexual violence survivors, and the organizations that support them, as part of its current and future studies.
Secondly, we would like to recommend that the committee include in its study consideration of how to better support the needs of frontline community-based anti-violence workers and volunteers within the gender-based violence sector in Canada. To illustrate this point, we have submitted a report that we produced in collaboration with one of our partner organizations, Anova, that shares the findings of a national survey we conducted in the summer of 2020 involving 376 gender-based violence workers and volunteers.
This report documents the way in which providing frontline support to survivors of violence, particularly during the pandemic, is complex and emotionally difficult work that continues to be largely undervalued. Many of those within the gender-based violence workforce continue to lack access to competitive wages, extended health care benefits, pensions and training opportunities. To be clear, this is not an oversight of organizations employing those within the sector. Rather, the precarity of this work is an extension of the chronic underfunding of the sector and the systemic devaluing of this form of labour that continues to be overwhelmingly performed by women.
Every day that we delay taking action on gender-based violence is another day that we make it even more difficult for those experiencing violence to build the lives, families and communities they want to create. We urge the committee to emphasize this need for immediate action and to stress the importance of moving beyond gathering recommendations and taking concrete steps toward implementing these recommendations.
Thank you.