Justice committee  Do you mean around the sentencing?

Justice committee  The women tell us that they want the bill. They really want this bill so that they can be understood and start speaking fully about the atrocities they have endured. If I go to their voices, I know they are willing to try. If we open up our court system to thinking about non-state torture in the everyday sense and educate lawyers, judges, the police, and all of us, then we will evolve through that.

Justice committee  I feel that the bill is so important that if members in the House are concerned about the inconsistency between state torture sentencing and non-state torture sentencing, I'm willing to let that go. I think it's fair to be consistent. We can't say you're going to have a higher sentence for non-state than state, in my opinion.

Justice committee  Yes, I do.

Justice committee  It sounds like a good idea.

Justice committee  I think society will change in many ways, because if we name a crime then we make it visible in our country. We start gathering data on the crime. We start to know how prevalent it is in our country. We have statistics. Then we change the interventions with police and in the court system.

Justice committee  We've been told by victims who have gone to court that torture named in their victim impact statement was redacted from their statement. They weren't allowed to use the word in court. We know now from research that, when you use a word, it changes your brain, so when you've endured torture and you have to name it something else, then your brain goes into a sense of incongruity or harm.

Justice committee  I would say, but I would also say that, if we did have a crime of non-state torture in the criminal court, more people would come forward, probably, with their stories. I've also been witness to a woman talking to her lawyer about what she had endured, and many of these things that I read about she talked to her lawyer about and he said, “If you brought that in the courtroom, there would be blood on the floor; your blood on the floor.

Justice committee  I think that prevention would be possible. The groups that we know are very persistent in harming the victim. If people have children in these families and we access and save the children more quickly, the trauma that they would endure would be much less. If we have people who come forward earlier, health care providers or first responders who know how to recognize non-state torture early in a child's life, and we can bring that to court, then the child can be protected and the prevention of long-term trauma would definitely occur.

Justice committee  I thought we were here as individuals.

Justice committee  Thank you. First, I want to say that Jeanne and I really support the bill, and we thank Peter for bringing it forward. It is an important piece of work. In the three recommendations we have in the brief that we submitted to the committee, we would agree with the 14-year sentencing.

Justice committee  We absolutely have to do something. This is an evolutionary process of seeing violence against women and children from spouses, etc., and child and human trafficking, being addressed in new legislation. There are statues of the “Famous Five” close to where we are now, and in the 1920s they fought for women to be considered persons.

Justice committee  I'd be sick about it. I think we have to remember that the majority, and it goes from 90% to 97% of the women who are prostituted, endure violence. We have to always remember to think of the majority, not the 3% to 10% who say it's work. As far as torture is concerned, if women knew that there was a law naming torture—not assault, because assault minimizes torture—they would start naming their torturer more.

Justice committee  The ones that were beaten up?

Justice committee  They weren't adults when the torture started, but they were adults when we met them.