Increasing Safety for Women Experiencing Sexual and Domestic Violence
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Issue 2014-2 1404-510 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC V6B 1L8 Tel 604.633.2506 Fax 604.633.2507 www.endingviolence.org ATF 2014: INCREASING SAFETY FOR WOMEN EXPERIENCING SEXUAL AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE On November 6-7, 2014, EVA BC will welcome front - zation in the U.S. to focus on vio lence against South line anti-violence workers from communities across Asian immigrant women; Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is BC to our Annual Training Forum. Three distin - British Columbia’s highly regarded Representative guished keynote speakers from Canada and the for Children and Youth; and Bonnie Brayton has United States will be sharing their expertise to help been the National Executive Director of DAWN- us effectively frame the many complexities involved RAFH Canada since establishing a National Head in responding to the needs of women who have Office in Montreal in May 2007. Please read on to experienced violence: Shamita Das Dasgupta is a get a taste of what you may expect to hear from this co-founder of Manavi (New Jersey), the first organi - year’s keynote speakers. continued page 3 Keynote speakers (l-r): Shamita Das Dasgupta, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond and Bonnie Brayton. INSIDE THIS ISSUE Understanding Sexual Assault as a Serial Offence ..................................................p. 9 EVA BC Updates .........................................................................................................p. 13 Responding to Suicidal Thoughts in Young Clients ................................................p. 15 EVA BC NEWSLETTER / FALL 2014 Ending Violence Association Message from the Executive Director of British Columbia (EVA BC) Welcome to this edition of the EVA BC newsletter featuring highlights 1404-510 West Hastings Street from the three distinguished keynote speakers who will be presenting at Vancouver, BC V6B 1L8 this year’s training forum, Increasing Safety for Women Experiencing Sexual Phone: 604-633-2506 and Domestic Violence. Fax: 604-633-2507 Toll-free (members only): As always, we are thrilled to have this opportunity to share with you some 1-877-633-2505 of the wisdom and research of our keynotes in our feature article. [email protected] Contributions from Shamita Das Dasgupta, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond www.endingviolence.org and Bonnie Brayton are all here, reflecting their respective areas of expert ise in working with immigrant women impacted by violence, the impacts of Editor violence on children who witness and how disabled women as a popula tion Nancy Boyce are disproportionately impacted by violence. We are also happy to share an excellent article by one of this year’s work - Layout and Design shop presenters, Laura Hamilton, on responding to suicidal youth within Britt Permien a framework of hope rather than fear, as well as an article by EVA BC’s Research & Projects Manager, Joanne Baker, that discusses understanding sexual assault as a serial offence and the implications that framework could Contributors EVA BC and CCWS staff, have in the investigation and conviction of those crimes. Sarah Bolton, Bonnie Brayton, As always, there is news from member programs around BC and an Nicki Breuer, Shamita Das Dasgupta, update on everything we’ve been doing here at EVA BC – that includes Lynda Dechief, Laura Hamilton, information about the new Forced Marriages Project we are working on in Brooke McClardy, Nell-Ann Toegel, partnership with MOSAIC, the Indigenous Communities Safety Project, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond and Be More Than a Bystander, and much more. Legal Services Society. I hope you find this year’s Forum both useful and inspirational and yo ur experiences here will be part of what sustains you throughout the year in This newsletter is published two times per the incredible work you all do to support women impacted by sexual and year and provided free of charge to EVA BC domestic violence. members. The views expressed by newsletter contributors do not necessarily reflect those of With respect, the EVA BC Board and/or staff. Submit your Tracy Porteous ideas, articles and photos for future newslet ters to [email protected]. EVA BC core services are supported by the Ministry of Justice and the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Charitable # 13926 5821 RR0001 PAGE 2 EVA BC NEWSLETTER / FALL 2014 ATF 2014: INCREASING SAFETY FOR WOMEN EXPERIENCING SEXUAL AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE continued from page 1 HOW DOES ONE MAKE IT? SEEKING essen tial needs including mental health related. As a conse - SAFETY FOR WOMEN quence, advocates’ and interveners’ work becomes confined BY SHAMITA DAS DASGUPTA to crisis intervention . Although many advocates recognize that tending to a victim’s immediate needs will not keep her Interventions in violence against women are centered on the safe over time, the sheer volume of incoming cases hardly objective and practice of creating safety for women who permits us to go beyond the here and now. Facilitating a have experienced violence in their lives. Safety planning is victim’s move towards permanent safety requires an extreme nearly always the focal point in all advocacy and systems amount of time, thinking, and energy, resources that change efforts. Yet, we have only begun to recognize that advo cates, who can barely make the jump from crisis to safety cannot be arranged formulaically. What might appear cri sis, lack badly. To complicate matters, funders customar ily to be definite safety—such as a woman leaving an abuser— consider numbers to be an indicator of success of our work may not translate to actual safety for all victims. In fact, we and, by extension, their funding decisions. The higher now know that the period around separation from the number of victims we work with, the greater our the abuser may be the most hazardous time for some accomplishments. Thus, the institutions of funding also battered women. 1 funnel our work towards crisis intervention and not spend A poor woman in India who lived in a shantytown once time helping one woman achieve long-term safety. taught me an important lesson about safety. This woman Separating a battered woman from her abuser is frequently supported her entire family on a meager maid’s income. Her considered the key strategy in intervention because we partner was unemployed, contributed little to the family, and believe that separation instantaneously stops the violence she beat her up almost every day. She was smart, courageous, experiences. Naturally, it limits the batterer’s access to her. and resourceful; yet, chose to stay with her abuser. When We sometimes involve the state systems in order to make I encouraged her to leave the relationship and promised quick changes in the woman’s life by removing and/or her my support during the process, she remarked that at pun ishing the abuser, which is generally equated to her safe ty. least in her current relationship she was safe because only While the abuse stops immediately and the woman is safer one man was abusing her. If she left him and became an when the police remove a batterer from his home, her safety unaccompanied woman on the streets, she would become an may be quite temporary and brief. This woman’s action of open target to many. Then, how would she achieve safety for calling the police may instigate violence from a variety of the rest of her life? other forces in her life. For example, her community (that has This wise woman helped me realize that safety has different been experiencing immigration raids and police brutality) meanings, both emotional and practical, for women in may turn on her; she may fall victim to violence from the different social positions by virtue of her race, class, ability, bat terer’s family (or even her own) for compromising family sexuality, residency status, etc. These factors unavoidably honor; she may face deportation as her undocumented status interact with each other to influence the circumstances of is revealed; and her clergy may excommunicate her for safety in a battered woman’s life. Just as acts of violence decid ing to separate. against women do not occur in a vacuum, safety without a context is a myth. Limitations of Conventional Safety Planning Understandably, concern for victim safety often leads inter - Managing risks for a battered woman and protecting her veners to focus narrowly on imminent physical danger. In might save her from being hurt, but it will not encourage an most cases, we urgently want to protect the victim from seri - atmosphere in which she can grow freely and have viable ous injuries, find her food and shelter, and take care of her choices. A more holistic concept of safety encompasses not PAGE 3 EVA BC NEWSLETTER / FALL 2014 only the battered woman, but also her children, family, pets, growth needs that culminate in self-actualization, a level at neighbors, and friends—concentric circles of relationships which an individual thinks beyond fulfilling mere deficits that surround and nourish her. In contrast to protection, and progresses towards realizing his/her human potential. safety in its truest form is not dependent on the actions of The deficit needs are immediate, one-dimensional, and other individuals, advocacy agencies, state systems, or short-term while the growth needs are complex, multi- sym pathetic relatives. It is under the control of the battered dimensional, and long-term. and sexually violated woman and allows her autonomy and Frequently, intervention strategies with battered and sexual ly energy for intellectual, psychological, and spiritual develop ment. abused women at the institutional level are constructed to Being safe carries a much greater significance than deal with their deficit needs. As interveners, we may believe being protected. that our task is to make sure that a battered woman is Although practitioners in the area of domestic and sexual phys ically safe and secure right now. However, in addition to violence work toward creating safety for victims, they do not bodily integrity, a woman may want to be cherished by her necessarily agree on the best way to keep a woman and her family, respected by the community, become a productive children safe.