Canada needs plan to address violence against women

A week of critical incident reports at Atira Women’s Resource Society tell a horrific story of violence that is so commonplace, it seems routine.

A week ago Wednesday, at a hotel in Gastown, Danielle was assaulted. We heard her screaming and when we attended her room, we saw she was bleeding from her mouth.

The following day, Annalisa was held at knife point. Her boyfriend has a no-go to the building where she lives as he has assaulted Annalisa before, many times. He managed to sneak in somehow. Maybe she helped him.

Earlier that same day, Barb was pulled into a van immediately after stepping through the front door of her hotel across from Oppenheimer Park. She was brutally assaulted and tossed into the street.

In the past year, Justice Robin Camp was disciplined for blaming a 19-year-old complainant for her alleged rape asking her, “Why couldn’t you just keep your knees together?” Quebec prosecutors failed to lay charges in 35 of 37 complaints made by indigenous women, who alleged sexual violence and other abuse at the hands of provincial police officers.

In Canada, one in five sexual assault claims are dismissed as baseless.

The rates of violence against women and girls in Canada remain steady. Indigenous women, women of colour, women who are poor, women who struggle with substance use, trans women and immigrant women are especially vulnerable to violence, as are women in rural and northern, resource-dependent communities.

When I ask women who work at Atira Women’s Resource Society to put up their hands if they have ever been sexually assaulted, almost all do — more than 90 per cent. They are our first boyfriends. Our husbands. Our brothers’ friends. Our uncles. Our mothers’ boyfriends. Our fathers. Our dates. Strangers.

If Canada has a role to play, globally and locally, in the protection and improvement of women’s rights, it is this: We need, as noted in Amnesty International’s 2017 Human Rights Agenda, for Canada to develop a “comprehensive, coordinated, well-resourced national action plan on violence against women, with specific measures to end violence against indigenous women and girls.”

While development of a federal strategy to address gender-based violence is a start, more direct action is needed to end violence against women and girls in Canada.

We need to get our own house in order to set an example on the world stage.

We must acknowledge the violence and discrimination that women continue to face in Canada, not just in other places in the world.

We must ensure we continue to have an unwavering commitment to ending violence against women and we must provide vigorous and unqualified support for women-led organizations and activists working to end all forms of gendered violence and violence against women. Janice Abbott is the CEO of Atira Women’s Resource Society, a women’s anti-violence organization.