Government still failing to address violence against women one year after UN recommends change

OTTAWA – November serves as Women Abuse Prevention Month and New Democrats are incredibly disheartened by the Conservative government failure to address violence against women. A year after the United Nations CEDAW report made recommendations that Canada make significant changes to help protect women in Canada from violence, we have seen little action, said New Democrat Status of Women Critic Irene Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe).

The report chastised the federal government for failing to fully investigate the missing and murdered aboriginal women. The report stressed the need to make this a priority and the necessity to examine why this tragedy has been allowed to continue with little effort to stop it. The report praised the Sisters in Spirit initiative, but indicated that the federal government itself needed to take action.

The CEDAW report called on the federal government to fund and support shelters and other support services and take special consideration for services for aboriginal women, women with disabilities, immigrants, refugees and trafficked women and rural and northern women.

And finally, the report called on the federal government to protect victims of domestic violence and ensure they have immediate means of redress and protection. Perpetrators should be adequately prosecuted and punished and the government should develop legislation to specifically address domestic violence and make it a criminal offence.

New Democrats and women’s organizations across this country have been lobbying the federal government for years on these very issues. Sadly their messages have been ignored. This Conservative government has instead taken key steps to eradicating the voices of women in this country. They have defunded and wiped out many women’s organizations that lobbied and assisted women in the fight to eliminate violence against women. This action has had a silencing effect on women’s voices and limited the ability for women to lobby for adequate and supportive legislation that would protect and benefit them.