One year after the sexual assault case against the five Canadian World Juniors hockey players resulted in an acquittal, the recent arrest of three Toronto Police Service officers surfaces one of the troubling issues raised in that case: the sexual degradation of women as a shared, male bonding experience.Â
Many women who call us have little income or are completely dependent on the abuser. Of the women who stay in our short-term shelter, the vast majority (78%) live in poverty and 18% work in low paid jobs.
Residents of our transition house cannot find safe, adequate, and affordable long-term housing in their community. Women stay with us for longer and longer lengths of time because they can’t find a suitable, affordable place. Women who’ve moved out of our house regularly call on us to provide them with gift cards to be able to buy groceries for their family.
On May 21 and 22, Vancouver Rape Relief will intervene in two appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada that raise an important issue for sexual assault survivors whose cases go before the criminal courts.Â
Rape Relief is intervening to argue that men who do not bother to consider whether their sexual partners are consenting (or whether they are over the age of consent) are at fault and should be held accountable.
The BC Coroner just released its Review of Intimate Partner Violence-Related Deaths in British Columbia, 2016-2024. We have been pressing the province for systemic change, with transparency and making the information available to the public as a fundamental first step. The reports key findings is what we've been saying all along:Â
1. IPV-related deaths remain persistent and mostly preventable.Â
2. Women are disproportionately impacted as 76% of victims killed by an intimate partner.
3. A known history of violence was common but not universal. 36% of victim–perpetrator relationships had at least one prior incident of police-reported IPV and, of these, 29% of incidents occurred within one month of the death. Over half of perpetrators had a history of assault.
Ordinary Women Rise: the Radical Women of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter is a call to action and a blueprint for change that equips readers across sectors with the historical context, political analysis, and lived realities necessary to strengthen their work in support of women’s safety, equality, and liberation.
