31 Things British Columbia Can Do Right Now to End Violence Against Women
9. Bring back regional coordination committees for women’s safety
In the 1990s, BC supported a network of regional coordination committees for women’s safety. Regional coordination involves meetings between non-profit and government services that work with women who have experienced violence and collaboration on specific cases, where appropriate. Meaningful coordination requires funded facilitation, and that key players such as representatives from Crown Counsel, the local police, the Ministry of Children and Families, the Ministry of Social Development, and probation officers are mandated to attend. Regional coordination committees are a proven way to ensure that service providers are meeting frequently and regularly to build relationships across sectors and to ensure the safety of women and children.
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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