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Name:
Government of British Columbia
Subject: Prevention of Violence Against Women
Department: Women's Studies

Report Card
Highlights




Fail

Access to Justice
  • providing women access to a fair, safe and equitable legal process in obtaining custody access agreements, property settlements, separation agreements and other family law matters via the legal aid system
  • ensuring access to courthouses, victim services, family advocates, etc., especially in rural communities
  • adequately funding systems, such as the Ombudsman and the Human Rights Commission, which enable women to seek redress on issues of discrimination and human rights, especially in government services
  • asserting First Nations/Aboriginal legal and social rights as sovereign nations with the recognition of historical injustices

Fail
Access to Services
  • providing funding to a broad range of crisis intervention, prevention, counseling, advocacy and support services
  • working to ensure changes to service provision are made with respect to women's unequal position in society and with the intent to improve women's access

Fail

Economic Equality
  • understanding that achieving economic equality and ending violence against women are interdependent and indivisible goals
  • comprehension and valuation of women's unpaid work in the home and community
  • ensuring availability of income supports to provide abused women with options and empowering women with choices before abuse starts and in the event that they choose to leave
  • working towards decreasing wage gap between men and women
  • implementation of public sector pay equity legislation
  • safeguarding an adequate minimum wage
  • ensuring access to universal childcare
  • maintaining assistance programs for women experiencing debt crisis

Fail

Gender-Inclusive Policy Reform
  • providing access to government through consultation, transparency and openness
  • prior to legislation, regulations and policy changes that directly impact women, providing communities with information about changes and providing access to information in a straight forward manner 
  • understanding that the same cut will affect women and men differently and that a gender neutral approach ignores women’s realities potentially increasing women’s risks
  • applying a gender-based analysis to all policy, program and legislative changes that will affect women

Fail

Women's Equality and Human Rights
  • understanding oppression as the root cause of violence against women, as outlined by International Human Rights Treaties, and the need to work for long-term, systemic change
  • protecting women's Human Rights through compliance with the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the BC Bill of Rights, and International Human Rights Treaties, such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
  • actively seeking the removal of barriers that prevent women’s human rights from being attained

Recommendation: Based on this performance, it is recommended that the Government of British Columbia be expelled immediately and not promoted to the next term.

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April 22, 2002  °  BC Coalition of Women's Centres