Domestic violence targeted in minority communities
Women from minority communities dealing with domestic violence still face stigmatization and other obstacles to getting help, a senior manager of the multicultural service agency MOSAIC said Friday.
Marc Larrivée spoke to reporters at the launch of a campaign called, “Targeting violence against women in the name of honour.”
MOSAIC workers spent 20 months talking to minority women in focus groups before launching the campaign, which includes public services announcements, posters and online resources in several languages.
Larrivée said the women stressed the violence they face is no different than that of any Canadian-born women experiencing domestic violence.
“But we also found that the barriers that they have to deal with due to language, understanding of Canadian culture and just feeling that they can come forward and share their story given the fact there may be some stigma attached to domestic violence when it comes to specific communities,” he said.
He said high-profile cases in the media where domestic murders have been described as “honour” killings reinforce the stigma.
“We don’t want to use that term to make it seem like that kind of violence is vastly different than other violence women are experiencing. Because all that does is make those women less likely to come forward. So that’s really what we found.”
Ninu Kang, MOSAIC’s director of communications, said she hopes the campaign will create awareness and lead to a public conversation about violence against women.
“We are hoping this will create a further dialogue. We are hoping people will talk and ask questions and we are hoping the issue, the discourse of culture, violence and honour will continue to receive more of a deeper understanding from this conversation,” she said.
“And we’re hoping that women when they see this will also think and know that there are services out there who will support them in whatever form of violence they are dealing with.”
Media coverage of sexual assault allegations against former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi and sexual misconduct allegations on Parliament Hill has increased awareness of the issue of violence against women, B.C. NDP MLA Kathy Corrigan said.
“We do need to also recognize that if a woman is living with violence and needs to escape violence either by herself or with her children, we also need to have places for those women to go to get the services,” Corrigan said.
Details of the campaign, which was funded by Status of Women Canada, are available at: www.honourforwomen.ca