This refusal on the part of the police to take substantial action on violence against women is one of political will, set by those in leadership of the police departments and boards. This is a problem that cannot be remedied through the distribution of more funds. Rather, it requires a complete reorganization of priorities.
With a Guaranteed Livable Income, women would not have to be economically dependent on men. It would increase women’s ability to resist exploitation and abuse from bosses, co-workers, landlords, pimps, and battering husbands.
In Canada, as in many other parts in the world, women first operated rape crisis centres and transition houses in the mid 70’s as part of the second wave of the feminist movement. The collective of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter has been operating a rape crisis centre since 1973 and a transition house since 1981. In April 2009, we invited women who stayed in our own transition house, and in the second stage housing of Monroe House and Safe Choice, to share their experience of using these houses to get free from violent men.
During my weekly night at the house, I spend time with our residents, help out with chores and play with children. As I support them in their transition to a life without violence, we share with each other what we know of male violence against women as I see them in their resistance part of the women’s liberation movement.
1200 new women are calling us every year... Sometimes they call because they can’t sleep.... Sometimes they call us because it’s not safe for them to stay where they are... Sometimes they call us because they need a bus ticket or a flight... Many times they will call us because they want to protect other women...
British Columbia must provide concrete options to leave prostitution, including a guaranteed livable income, safe affordable housing and addiction mental health services.
We recognize the many useful recommendations made by the commissioners of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and call on all levels of government to promptly and diligently implement them in order to protect Indigenous women from men’s violence and get them closer to safety and freedom.
As a resident of Burnaby and as someone who has advocated to police on behalf of countless women, I want to tell my fellow women in the community to call your local women’s group — never go alone.
We need a complete transformation of all levels of the criminal justice system. We need a civilian oversight of police investigations into cases of sexual assault that will include front line feminist advocates. We need an open and ongoing review that will not simply result with sexual assaults being classified under different codes but instead restore investigations being done and appropriate charges being brought forward.
We do not accept murder, rape, wife battering and incest as inevitable and we do not accept prostitution as inevitable.
These are all acts done by men to women in patriarchal world where the relationship between men and women are based on domination and subordination. We do not accept that this kind of relationships between men and women are inevitable.
Learning that Indigenous women in pre-colonial Canada were treated in their nations with respect and honor, gives us hope. It reinforces our refusal to accept women’s oppression as inevitable. Knowing that fairly recently in human history, women had social and spiritual roles that were regarded as valuable as those men had, makes our fight for liberation not only possible, but tangible.
