Thank you so much.
I'd like to begin by acknowledging that this conversation is taking place across traditional territories of many indigenous nations. I am currently on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit, the Anishinabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, now home to diverse first nations, Inuit and Métis people.
My name is Farrah Khan. I've spent 25 years raising awareness about the intersections of gender-based violence inequity through education, policy, art creation and advocacy.
I am currently the executive director of Courage to Act, a national project to address and prevent gender-based violence at post-secondary schools through my company, Possibility Seeds. I also run a sexual assault and gender-based violence centre at Ryerson University.
I am really grateful to speak to this committee, because gender-based violence, specifically domestic violence, intimate partner violence, has been on my mind as I've witnessed time and time again survivors struggling under the pandemic. This is the second pandemic that we're living in.
We know that domestic violence, intimate partner violence, is rooted in gender inequality, power and privilege. It's a manifestation of patriarchal violence, and it intensely impacts the communities we live in.
One thing that isn't talked about enough is the fact that it affects young people in disproportionate ways, more than any other age cohort. What we know is that three in 10, or 29% of women between the ages of 15 to 24 years of age, have reported being subjected to intimate partner violence in the past 12 months. The rates are even higher for people within that age group who are part of Black, indigenous, racialized communities, women with disabilities and 2SLGBTQ people.
When we think about who is a domestic violence or intimate partner violence survivor, we oftentimes do not think of that 15- to 24-year-old age group, but we are missing out when we don't.
It's really important to note, too, that these conversations are binary and that trans qbe gender non-binary people experience a high rate of IPV and physical, sexual and psychological harm, at 1.7 times higher than cisgender people.
I agree with Angela, my colleague, who says that we need the national action plan to happen. We need it well resourced, and we need to move quickly, because this is a pandemic in and of itself. We need to act on the recommendations of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
We need to centre the voice of survivors and the work of grassroots movements and remember that we leave no one behind, because oftentimes when we think about who is a survivor, we focus on the needs of white cis women, and we know that's not true because across the country so many women, girls, men and boys are experiencing this type of violence. We can't leave behind trans abd gebder non-binary people or two-spirit folks, because no one deserves this.
We have to challenge the narrow definitions of what domestic violence is to ensure that no survivor who is experiencing something like forced marriage, stalking, harassment online or intimate images being shared is shut out of accessing services and feels like they cannot reach out for support.
We need disaggregated data that talks about race, gender and sexuality so we understand the scope and ways in which it impacts diverse communities.
I don't know about you, but I want action about housing. We have a huge unaffordable housing issue in Canada, and it breaks my heart when survivors say they cannot leave this violence; they have to live in it because there is nowhere for them to go.
We also have to address food insecurity when we know that it disproportionately affects women and that right now we are in a food crisis. People, again, will stay with an abuser because they can't afford to leave.
We also have to look at income security supports and social protection so that no one has to think, “If I have to pay my rent and pay my bills, there is no way I can leave this abusive situation.” We keep women, girls and people inside abusive relationships by not addressing income security.
We have to continue affordable child care, because people are able to afford to pay for their children to be in child care now so that they can get out of abusive relationships and stay out.
We need to provide grants, not loans, to post-secondary students, to ensure that they are able to go to school and not feel that they're reliant on abusive family members, community members or partners to address the needs they have for education.
I would also state, implement Keira's law. That child should never have been killed, and a private member's bill that would expand judicial education to do good seminars on intimate partner violence and coercive control needs to go forward.
I say, too, that the last piece that we need to address is the criminalization of intimate partner violence survivors. Just this past month, Tanner Brass was found dead hours after police arrested his mother, Kyla Frenchman, when she argued with them about her son's safety. The boy's father, Kaij Brass, was charged with second-degree murder.
The police could have prevented this, but instead they criminalized an indigenous mother, and her son was killed as a result. We need to do better. We need to stop criminalizing survivors, especially Black and indigenous survivors.
We also need the government to invest in nonpunitive approaches and divest from carceral approaches for addressing domestic violence. We can no longer look at the approaches that we have been taking, because they're not working. We need to change this.
Lastly, we need to invest in young people, because young people experience high rates of violence and they're not protected right now.
Thank you so much.
