Independent Review Urges B.C. to Declare Gender-Based Violence a Serious Issue

Photo: The Canadian Press B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma responds to questions outside B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver on Monday November 27, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

An independent review of the treatment of victims of sexual and intimate partner violence in the British Columbia legal system calls the government to declare gender-based violence an epidemic.

The review says most survivors never report violence to police, and those who do experience more barriers to justice.

Statistics show 80 per cent of those who have experienced intimate partner violence and 94 per cent of sexual assault survivors do not report the crime, while more than one third of women over the age of 15 in B.C. say they have experienced sexual violence.

Attorney General Niki Sharma says some victims \"don't feel safe coming forward, they fear not being believed, retraumatized or dismissed,\" which is why the government appointed Kim Stanton in May 2024 to conduct the review.

Stanton says her review found numerous barriers for action, and identifies nine recommendations for the best way to help survivors, including an increased focus on prevention, reform in the courts and legal aid funding for family law services.

She says that change starts with ensuring provincewide, age appropriate consent education, supplying additional support services for men who use violence before they interact with the criminal justice system, and ensuring police and legal professionals have unconscious bias training.

\"My work is done on the review, but now it's over to the attorney general and her colleagues to take up the road map that I've given them and move forward,\" Stanton told a news conference Tuesday.

According to the source: Castanet.