BC Coalition of Women's Centres
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BC Coalition of Women’s Centres
For immediate release
May 28, 2002
Woman’s life not worth $5.65 in British
Columbia
Statistics released to the BC Coalition of Women’s Centres, by the Ministry
of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services, show that Women’s Centres
in British Columbia provided direct service to more than 300,500 women in
BC in 2001.
The number indicates total service calls and drop-ins handled by 36 Women’s
Centres across the province. In 2001, Women’s Centres answered requests
for help from 139,000 women by telephone, and 161,099 women in person, equaling
a total of 300,569 women accessing community Women’s Centres. This
figure represents 16 per cent of all women and girls in the province.
The majority of these requests were from women experiencing violence and/or
poverty.
Women’s Centres receive $47,184.72 per year in operational funding from
the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services, or $1.7 million
for the entire province. This totals a cost to the province of merely
$5.65 for each woman helped by Women’s Centres in BC, or $0.91 for every woman
and girl in the province.
Despite these staggering numbers, which confirm that Women’s Centres provide
services that are valuable and economically feasible, the Government of
BC intends to cut 100 per cent of funding to all Women’s Centres by March
2004.
These statistics came out the same week MLAs across the province called
Women’s Centres requesting, and in some cases, insisting on, a “photo op”
to present a paltry $3000 for Women’s Centres, designated to “assist” Women’s
Centres in developing “a strategy to become self-sustaining through alternative
operational funding sources and/or service delivery models.”
There are no alternative sources of operational funding for Women’s Centres
in British Columbia.
This $3000 totals $114,000 across the province, or $0.06 for each woman
and girl in BC -- a shameful attempt by the Government of BC to reject its
obligation and responsibility to fund services for women experiencing violence,
poverty and other human rights abuses.
According to the Province of BC’s own statistics, in their lifetimes, approximately
one in two British Columbia women are victims of sexual assault, one in
three of wife assault, and one in five of other types of physical assault
(Women Count, 1998).
Violence against women in British Columbia, as estimated by the former
Ministry of Women’s Equality, costs taxpayers approximately $385 million
per year, including direct policing costs, transition houses, etc.
This does not include the cost of items such as health costs, legal costs,
or the cost of the intergenerational effects of violence.
Funding to all Women’s Centres in BC, which provide the advocacy necessary
to prevent and end violence against women, in addition to providing intervention
in individual cases, represents less than 0.05 per cent of this $385 million.
The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women
calls not merely for intervention in cases of violence against women, but
for the elimination of violence against women, through the allocation of
adequate resources within Government budgets, and through Government recognition,
facilitation and enhancement of the work of the women’s movement.
The BC Coalition of Women’s Centres calls on the Government of British
Columbia to honour its legal obligation to this and other International
Human Rights Treaties, by retracting its intention to cut funding to Women’s
Centres in 2004, and by ensuring adequate and secure core funding will be
in place until violence against women is eradicated in BC.
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If you have questions/comments for BCCWC, please
e-mail us at
bcwomen@telus.net
For other contact information,
please go to our
Information Page
BC Coalition of Women's Centres
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This page last updated: May
28, 2002
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