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Gender-based violence: ‘Name it, frame it, and support survivors’

One week ago, now former justice minister Brad Johns apologized for comments he made during a post-cabinet meeting. That apology came after Johns said he didn’t believe domestic violence was an epidemic.

“An [epidemic], you’re seeing it everywhere all the time, I don’t think that’s the case,” Johns said last Thursday.

(Johns wasn’t the only justice minister apologizing for comments. Newfoundland and Labrador’s Justice Minister John Hogan, apologized earlier this month for saying “It’s actually impossible” for defence lawyers to retraumatize survivors during a trial).

Then on Friday, Johns spent his day making calls to women’s organizations across Nova Scotia.

After Tim Bousquet wrote this Morning File on Monday about how the failure to deal with gender-based violence is much bigger than the former justice minister, I decided to find out what some of those women’s organizations had to say, not only about Johns’ apology, but also what we all need to know about gender-based violence.

Myrene Keating-Owen is the executive director of LEA Place Women's Centre in Sheet Harbour. That centre is one of nine women's centres scattered throughout the province whose staff members offer research, education, and advocacy to prevent violence and oppression against women, among other supports.

I heard Keating-Owen on CBC Radio last week. She was one of the women’s centre staff who got a call from Johns. I asked her to share some thoughts about his apology and on gender-based violence. Here’s what she sent to me:

Reflecting back to a week ago I am reminded of the shock and disheartening feeling I had when I received a call from then Minister Brad Johns. Unfortunately, at that time I had not seen the video of his interview and so knew very little of what had taken place. The call, he explained, was to apologize for the remarks he had made earlier that seemed to downplay domestic violence rates in Nova Scotia and the harm his comments would cause. As I listened, I was angered that the NS Justice Minister, a role that can most effectively make change and influence decisions within the system regarding gender-based violence, (GBV) would make that kind of statement. It is comments like this that perpetuate and even normalize gender based violence.

LEA Place Women’s Resource Centre provides direct support services to victims of domestic violence. Our fear is that we will see an increase in the number of women who choose not to reach out for services or proceed with legal recourse based on such comments and the government’s inaction to change a system where women already under report domestic violence and are re-traumatized when they do make a report.

Not understanding the causes, prevalence and required prevention actions of gender-based violence is unacceptable by any government official or department. There are ample reports available for members of government to learn from (ie Mass Casualty Commission Report, The National Action Plan, Desmond Inquiry and Murder(ed) and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls) which should be required reading for any Ministerial position. Most recently, Leeside Society produced a 25+ page report on the current and future state of gender based violence prevention in Nova Scotia, which includes calls to actions for government, Department of Community Services, academia and community organizations. What the last week tells us, is that one of the calls to action is to “educate up” and it is now time for the government to act.

Keating-Owen also sent along this report by Leeside Society and Be the Peace Institute completed about the current and future state of gender-based violence in Nova Scotia.

Adsum for Women and Children posted this statement on its social media accounts the day Johns made the comment.

Meghan Hansford, the housing support manager with Adsum, sent along this message to me, saying that “domestic violence is sometimes referred to as an ‘invisible epidemic’.”

In Canada, 44% of women aged 15 and older have reported some kind of abuse in an intimate partner relationship (Government of Canada, 2022). These statistics are also underestimates — substantially so — given that incidents of intimate partner violence are chronically under-reported. Research from the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women suggest that less than 2% of women in Nova Scotia report experiences of IPV to the authorities (Status of Women, 2022). Traditionally domestic violence has been widely considered as isolated and private incidents. When referencing situations of intimate partner violence we often hear the saying – ‘oh it’s just a domestic’. The problem is that this narrative continues to perpetuate that IPV is and should be an ‘invisible’ issue.

As a society we can longer continue the dangerous narrative that violence against women is a private matter. It is very much, and should be, an issue of public concern and priority. At our organization alone we have seen the numbers of women and children fleeing violence continue to grow with 42 calls to our shelter programs this month alone. Then in the background of this, nationally, we have the on-going crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.  

IPV is pervasive and damaging. We need to do everything we can to name it, frame it, and support survivors. The recent National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, The Desmond Inquiry and the Mass Casualty Commission demonstrate that we are missing (and continue to miss) key opportunities. There are multiple recommendations from these inquiry’s. They offer research from professionals around what is needed and how to efficaciously respond to this crisis in an anti-oppressive and trauma-informed way. How long are we going to keep having inquiry’s after a woman is murdered instead of putting the learning that we have at our finger tips – into action, into concrete change? We need to see leaders committing to action, to prioritizing survivors and how we can learn from them.

One action that was identified in the mass casualty commission report that we need to see urgently – is the declaration of gender-based violence as an epidemic. IPV is the leading cause of homeless(ness) for women and children – disproportionately affecting women of color and Indigenous women. We know there is a housing crisis – this is quite visible in Halifax right now but often women who have fled domestic violence are experiencing invisible homelessness – and there are hundreds of families around the province who would be in this category.  

As experts in the field we know there are elements we can put in place right now to support and save lives of women and children. We need genuine curiosity, recognition, partnership and funding from all levels of government to achieve this.

Monika Hintz, the executive director of Bryony House, a 24-bed shelter that serves about 470 women and children each year, sent along these words:

As a community organization providing support to victims and survivors, we know the pervasiveness of domestic violence. While we see an increase in service requests, we know there are so many unreported cases resulting in those living in silence. We, as a society, need to collectively recognize this epidemic and commit to an impactful response towards ending gender-based violence. 

YWCA in Halifax has a December 6 fund, named for the day in 1989 when 14 women were killed at École Polytechnique. The fund provides small grants and microloans to survivors of gender-based violence to help with the costs of fleeing violent situations and to get appropriate housing and supports.

Candice Grant, a communications and donor support coordinator with YWCA, sent along this information sheet about the fund that includes some stats about gender-based violence in Nova Scotia. In 2022, the fund supported 269 survivors of gender-based violence. In 2023, the number was 236. So far, this year, the fund has supported 131 survivors.

Jennifer Martin is the president of the Nova Scotia Native Women's Association. One of the association’s priorities is the elimination of violence against women. According to its website, Indigenous women ages 15 and older are 3.5 tmes more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women. Also, the rates of spousal assault against Indigeous women are more than three times higher than those against non-Indigenous women.

Martin sent this message:

For Indigenous women in Nova Scotia the issue of gender-based violence is much more prevalent to the point of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls calling it genocide. Therefore, a person who represents the Nova Scotia justice system to say what he did is harmful.  It perpetuates colonial harms for our women, girls, transgendered and gender diverse people.

 

Immigrant women also face high rates of gender-based violence. The YMCA in Halifax offers gender-based violence prevention programs. Immigrant women face barriers including language, racism, and fewer multi-cultural resources, which make them more vulnerable to violence. 

The Transition Association of Nova Scotia (THANS) is the umbrella organization that represents 11 transition homes and second-stage housing for women escaping violence. I contacted Ann de Ste Croix, the provincial coordinator with THANS, for her thoughts on this. I will add those when she gets back to me.

THANS also did a podcast called "Somebody Must Say These Things" that investigates violence against women in Nova Scotia. And, of course, the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women has a domestic violence resource page. That page includes signs of abuse, details on the barriers to leaving violent situations, and resources for families and friends.

Four years ago, just a week after the mass shootings in Portapique, I wrote this article, "Male Violence":"A Pandemic in it's own Right". That line, “a pandemic in its own right,” was included in a statement released by THANS that week. There was another line from that story that stuck with me, too. It was this one from my interview with Andrea Gunraj, vice-president, public engagement with the Canadian Women's Foundation: “Men who are privately dangerous to women are publicly dangerous to everyone.”We have a long history of not believing women, from accusations of witchcraft, to women pleading for abortion care in front of all-male committees, to women who’ve been sexually assaulted by politicians. We also don’t believe the women who work with and support these women, who know very well that gender-based violence is an epidemic.

It’s time to start listening to survivors and those who support them. It’s these women who know what’s happening every day in Nova Scotia. The time for action was well before last Thursday.