Dubravka Šimonović, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, praised Justin Trudeau’s government but said more needed to be done

Violence against women in Canada is a “serious, pervasive and systemic problem”, according to a United Nations envoy who recently wrapped an investigative trip to the country.

Dubravka Šimonović, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women, applauded the Canadian government, led by Justin Trudeau, for its commitment to championing the rights of women and girls – but she urged officials in the country to do more.

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“Violence against women in Canada is still a serious, pervasive and systemic problem: an unfinished business that requires urgent actions,” said Šimonović recently after 13 days spent travelling the country last month.

Among the issues flagged in her preliminary findings was how the justice system deals with sexual assault complaints. A handful of rulings in recent years – from an Alberta judge who asked a complainant why she just couldn’t keep her knees together to another in Quebec who suggested a sexual assault complainant might have been a “bit flattered” by the attention – have prompted a Canada-wide conversation on the issue.

Šimonović recommended survivors be provided with free legal advice and that police officers and prosecutors be given specialised sexual assault training to broaden their understanding of rape myths and the legal standard of consent.

Young women between the ages of 15 and 25 years in Canada are at particularly high risk of experiencing sexual violence, she said. In 2014, 41% of those who self-reported sexual assault cases were students, with 90% of the cases committed against women.

Šimonović called on various levels of government to do more for women and children escaping violence, noting that there exists a “dire shortage” of shelters as well as a general lack of affordable housing. “Many women who have fled from domestic violence are subsequently forced to return to their homes, exposing themselves to the risk of facing further violence.”

Much of her preliminary findings focused on indigenous women in Canada, who, she said, “face marginalisation, exclusion and poverty because of institutional, systemic, multiple, intersecting forms of discrimination that have not been addressed by the state”.

She added: “Such deep-rooted discrimination stems from the long-standing intergenerational trauma resulting from colonialism, and discriminatory legal provision and practices.”

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Statistics suggest that indigenous women are three times more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted and four times more likely to go missing or be murdered than non-indigenous women in Canada.

While she welcomed the launch of a national inquiry into the as many as 4,000 indigenous women who have gone missing or have been murdered in recent decades, she highlighted that indigenous women continue to be overrepresented as victims of human trafficking in Canada.

Indigenous women are also overrepresented in prison – a grim trend that shows little sign of abating, she noted. Between 2001 and 2012, the number of incarcerated indigenous women increased by 109%. Indigenous women now make up 33% of the country’s inmates, despite the fact that indigenous peoples account for less than 4% of the Canadian population.

She urged Canada to tackle this discrimination, drawing a direct line between violence against women and government legislation that has for 150 years made it harder for First Nations women to hold status and pass it to their descendants.

She pointed to the disproportionate number of indigenous children caught in Canada’s child welfare system – described by one government official as a “humanitarian crisis” that echoes the horrors of a residential school system that saw 150,000 indigenous children forcibly removed from their homes – as another area of concern. “This harmful policy maintains and perpetuates the cycle of violence, with aboriginal women being made unable to break it and change it,” said Šimonović.



