31 Things British Columbia Can Do Right Now to End Violence Against Women
3. Address the immediate financial and housing needs of women fleeing violence
When a woman flees a violent or abusive situation, whether for a night or for a lifetime, there are often immediate financial needs that must be met to ensure safety for her and for her children. Women survivors of violence should be not be dually burdened with surviving on the streets. Accessible transitional housing, crisis grants, short term income assistance, child care and transportation may be the deciding factors in whether or not a woman and her children can escape a dangerous situation. BC’s VAWIR policy should be updated to explicitly address protocols for financial assistance workers, transition houses and BC Housing. The Residential Tenancy Act should also be amended to ensure that women are not locked into an abusive relationship out of fear of the costs associated with breaking a lease.
Women in British Columbia have waited too long already. That is why we are offering 31 things that BC’s new Provincial Office of Domestic Violence (PODV) can push for right now to increase safety for women and to bring us closer than we have ever been to ending violence against women once and for all. We are calling for 31 social, economic and legal changes, none of which are unachievable in this province. Some would require very little financial investment, and each of them will save resources in the long term given the high costs of violence against women.
For more information:
1. Call violence against women what it is
2. Audit for compliance with BC’s Violence Against Women in Relationship policy
3. Address the immediate financial and housing needs of women fleeing violence
5. Make addressing women’s inequality a core learning objective for all BC students
6. Add sexual violence by police to the mandate of the Independent Investigations Office
7. Address the feminization of poverty with a provincial anti-poverty plan
8. Push to add gender and sex to the hate crime provisions of Canada’sCriminal Code
9. Bring back regional coordination committees for women’s safety
10. Join the call for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women
11. Do not let immigration status stand in the way of women’s safety
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