Niagara Falls Review e-edition

Violence in the home is everyone’s problem

Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began in early spring 2020, the warnings started.

Women’s shelters in Niagara and others across the country were seeing more and more clients coming to them seeking not only a safe place to live, but also help finding accommodation, legal and financial advice and other life services.

Now, about 20 months later, the virus hasn’t gone away and the threats to women’s safety haven’t either, and in fact are worsening.

Thursday was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a time to raise the flags at city hall and put a spotlight on the work done by shelters like Women’s Place of South Niagara and Gillian’s Place.

It’s part of a month-long campaign against a cycle of mistreatment and violence against women and children that isn’t limited to 30 days on the calendar.

It rises and recedes, but unfortunately never ends.

A new study conducted by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability has revealed more women and girls were killed in Canada in the first six months this year than during the first half of either 2020 or 2019.

What has made it worse, researchers say, were the lockdowns and intermittent restrictions on travel and social activities mandated to control COVID.

With so many jobs lost, businesses and schools closed and the usual daily face-to-face contact we take for granted limited, the stress has been immense.

Families that never had to ask for help, have had to during the pandemic.

Financial worries cause stress at home at any time, but COVID made it worse.

Women were forced indoors to spend more time than ever with their abusers. Meanwhile, the outlets they might otherwise have had to share their experiences and seek advice — lunch with friends time with coworkers — were no longer available.

The study found 92 women and girls were killed during the first half of this year, compared to 78 last year and 60 in 2019.

“We’re experiencing a demand for service like we’ve never seen before,” Gillian’s Place interim executive director Nicole Regehr told the Niagara Dailies.

They’ve seen a 41 per cent increase in calls for assistance — and it was much worse during lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. At those times, she said, demand might have risen an astonishing 1,000 per cent.

Added Jennifer Gauthier, executive director at Women’s Place: “The number of women who are at risk has never been higher.”

Of course, that is unacceptable. No one should live in terror, under any circumstances.

And for children, experiencing abuse in the home can sometimes lead to them perpetuating the same cycle later in life in their own homes.

Ensuring continued government and private funding for places like Gillian’s Place and Women’s Place is vital, obviously.

Most important, we need to stop violence and intimidation at its source. And there is no simple answer to that problem, so we need to look in numerous different directions.

Police and the courts must make clear through their handling of these cases that domestic terror and violence is not OK, and there are consequences.

Men, and all parents, need to understand that.

News agencies must continue to inform the public about how widespread the problem is, why it is happening, and where victims can turn for help.

And we all need to look out for each other. Really listen when a woman says she is being abused, and watch for the signs that she or her children might be living in danger.

If only there were a simple answer to this problem. There isn’t, so we all must do more to prevent it.

OPINION

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2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://niagarafallsreview.pressreader.com/article/281569474000352

Toronto Star Newspapers Limited