There are women here from around the world. It’s truly an inspiring international gathering of 250 women who are building an anti-imperialist women’s movement.
This afternoon’s workshop - Violence Against Women, was very well attended.
Diana Yaros, one of the founders of Le Mouvement contre le viol et l’inceste, who have been doing fabulous anti-violence work in Montreal for 35 years moderated the workshop and began by asking us to think about what possible resolution we might want to bring forward to Monday’s meeting, where the groundwork for the International Women’s Alliance will begin.
Diana introduced Rita Acosta, her colleague at Le Mouvement who began her presentation, Trapped: Female Immigrants & Refugee Survivors of Sexual Violence by describing work she does with with refugee women who are survivors of sexual violence. At the Mouvement they work on 3 levels – prevention and fighting back, political awareness and legislative change. They see sexual aggression against refugee women perpetuated by men from all categories: armed groups, gangs, police, and unarmed men. Acosta spoke of femicide as genocide against women, where women are targeted simply because they are women. She further denounced collusion from the state when it fails to protect women, labeling this violence against women a state crime. Acosta asked, Who is profiting from this violence? And how do we stop it? We need laws to bring an end to this violence.
Women who escape devastating attacks on their dignity by coming to Canada are often met with suspicion and unfair questioning. They are held in contempt for not denouncing their offender, yet women from Canada are not asked to do the same thing. Bill C11 the proposed amendment to the Immigration Law to accelerate refugee files does not take into account the women’s experience of sexual violence and should be thoroughly reconsidered before it becomes law. Women’s silence about their offenders is not taken into account and could have serious repercussions for women who are in increasingly vulnerable positions.
Next up was Hsiao- Chuan Hsia, a Taiwanese academic and activist from the organizing committee of TASAT the TransAsia Sisters Association. Hsia spoke about violence against Marriage Migrants- women who flee their homelands and are then faced with poor treatment in their host countries- Cambodian women marrying a Korean spouse or Filipina women with Japanese spouses. They are often seen as coming from the ‘enemy country’ as in the case of mainland Chinese who immigrate to Taiwan. Hsia describes the state violence that exists for women who are trapped in violent marriages but cannot divorce due to substantive citizenship issues - immigration laws that obliged women to be in the marriage for many years before they could become citizens. They would be deported if they left the marriage. Some changes have been made to these laws recently but marriage migrants often don’t have the current information, they don’t read the language and are served by social workers who do not give them correct information. Women also stay in these violent marriages for long times for the kids – to give them a place to live. To fight against this state violence, TASAT has put together the ANMORE campaign to share, learn and build an international movement. They aim to bring justice to marriage migrants who have suffered state violence and domestic violence and to scrap discriminatory policies against marriage migrants.
Ada Neth Venezuela Lopez from Gautemala representing the Union Nacional Mujeres Guatemaltecas or UNAMG started her presentation with a short video that spoke to the fact that violence against women was ignored during the Guatemalan Civil war between 1960 and 1996. Sexual violence is a crime that cannot be ignored and that women today must not forget about it or keep silent. Ada Venezuela described how the war had a huge effect on indigenous peoples. Women had been a big part of the resistance movement against the hydro and mining projects, against the system. Irreplaceable loss of human life- more than 700 women died during the war. The migration both of people to the US and also from the rural areas to urban centres was huge. Today’s economy is based on remittances from Guatemalans living abroad.
Venezuela outlined three stages of genocide against the indigenous people – in 1524 during the Spanish invasion, in 1871 during the liberal reform and then during the 36 year war of the last century. During this last war, ‘people’ were defined as the enemy of the state; any ordinary person could be disappeared. Sexual violence is a part of the war machine. Women were kidnapped, raped and assassinated. Guatemala has seen a long history of oppression against women during wartime. In terms of violence against women they do not make the difference between wartime and now. They try to educate and demand justice for women. UNAMG has organized a tribunal that is symbolic but has a huge impact on the survivors of violence during the war. It gives them the opportunity to speak about the sexual violence they experienced. She quoted a woman who said during the tribunal “I am not embarrassed to talk about what happened to me in 1982. They raped me, robbed me, took my baby.” The tribunal teaches people about their history.
UNAMG uses art – theatre, graffiti , poetry to educate. They work with young people and the media to get their message out there – to demand justice and equity for women.
Venezuela ended her presentation with a poem – To Women who Inspire. With that, she got a loud round of applause.
The last presentation was given by France Robertson, coordinator for non- violence at the Quebec Native Women’s Association. France was born in Lac St Jean, QC or Mashteuiatsca. One of main aspects of the association’s work is to break the silence around violence against women. “In our communities there are very few resources to deal with this and it remains a taboo.” said Robertson. If the rates of violence against women in native communities seem alarming, we can look to colonization and its repercussions for reasons. Robertson described how the Indian Act or C31 gives the power to the Canadian gov’t to decide who is native and who is not. “In the eyes of the government I’m a minor and I am 39.” She described the residential schools system in Canada where children were removed from their homes and communities and brought to church run schools far away, where they could not speak in their mother tongue. Children would return home for the summer months when school was out after experiencing their language and culture held in contempt. “This shame has been passed on to our kids.”
Another colonizing aspect or assimilation technique, of the Indian Act was the matter of adoption where native children were removed from their homes by social workers to be adopted by white families in the south. In Quebec, native communities few resources to deal with the high incidence of criminality and domestic violence that are the legacy of these practices. Poverty and poor housing are endemic to the reserves where native peoples live in Canada. This was part of the colonizing process. “Native peoples have our own system of government which disappeared for many communities throughout our colonization. Many decades later, white people coming into our communities are very much a reminder of what happened to us.”
There are 520 cases of reported missing native women in Canada. What is so alarming, says Robertson is how the police and media fail to acknowledge this. “Native families don’t know who to turn to.” Robertson used a horrible example of three young native women who went missing in Quebec in 2006. Around the same time a lion cub disappeared from a zoo. This got a lot of coverage but the women’s stories did not. Police did not want to interfere because the reserves come under federal jurisdiction and these young women were from reserves. The story had a very tragic end when the body of Tiffany Morrison from Kahnawake was found this summer near the Mercier Bridge.
