Québec - Appendices

Appendix 1

Violence against women

In Québec, community action has played the leading role in ensuring that specific assistance was provided in situations where women were abused. Volunteers from all backgrounds organized to provide the most urgent accommodation, assistance, listening and support services.

As early as 1975, the first Centre d'aide et de lutte contre les aggressions à caractère sexuel (CALACS) [centre to provide assistance in and to combat cases of sexual assault] and in 1976 the first half-way houses and shelters for women and children appeared.

This community action provided the basis for the government policies, approaches and programs that have since followed.

Government action

In 1985, the Department of Health and Social Services presented the Politique d'aide aux femmes violentées [policy on assistance for abused women]. It was geared to two specific realities: battered women in a marital context and women who were the victims of sexual assault. The main objectives of this policy were to reduce these forms of violence, improve services for victims and contribute to changes in attitude and mentality.

In the following year, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Solicitor General developed the Politique d'intervention en matière de violence conjugale [policy on action to be taken in cases of spousal violence]. This policy emphasized the humanization of the judicial treatment of victims and stressed the need for criminal proceedings to be brought with respect to the deeds perpetrated by the spouse. It was also designed to lower the threshold of community tolerance of spousal violence and invited judicial, community and psycho-social resources to work together.

In the spring of 1992, the Department of Health and Social Services adopted the Orientations en matière de programmes d'intervention auprès des conjoints violents [Guide to programs of action with respect to violent spouses]. This guide governs actions to deal with violent spouses in the province and the development of services for them, while confirming the recognition of these resources as an essential component of intervention in this area. In addition, under the guidelines adopted, this intervention must be a continuous and complement the assistance and protection services provided to women and children who are the victims of violence.

An interdepartmental committee providing co-ordination in the area of spousal and family violence was asked by the Government in 1993 to develop a draft Politique concernant la violence conjugale et ses effets sur les enfants [Policy on spousal violence and its effects on children]. This policy, which is expected to be ready in 1995, will bring together the approaches and actions of the various departments and agencies dealing with this problem. In this context, it is proposed that an overall, co-operative, multidisciplinary and preventive approach be developed in partnership with social, judicial and community groups and organizations.

In December 1993, the Minister of Health and Social Services announced the creation of a task force on sexual assault, which has a mandate to document the problem, draw up a balance sheet of all resources, actions and mechanisms for co-operation, formulate policies and objectives and make appropriate recommendations. This work is designed to produce a plan of action for the Minister of Health and Social Services and his or her partners.

Assistance services

The main community assistance services for victims are as follows:

• Ten centres d'aide aux victimes d'actes criminels (CAVAC) [centres to assist the victims of criminal offences] welcome, inform and support the victims of criminal offences. If necessary, the persons who work there accompany victims in their dealings with private or public agencies and to court. The CAVAC also steers victims to appropriate legal, medical, social and community resources.
  In 1992-1993, the clientele of the CAVACs consisted of 74.9 percent women. These were primarily direct victims (91.4 percent), 23 percent of whom were the victims of spousal violence, 32.9 percent of assault, 28.3 percent of sexual offences and 14.5 percent of threats. Of the women victims, 76.3 percent knew the offender. In most of the cases, the offender was unknown to the male victims (52 percent). Ninety-eight per cent of the victims of crimes involving spousal violence were women.
• SOS Violence conjugale [SOS spousal violence] is a permanent telephone service that was established for women who were the victims of spousal violence and steers them to appropriate assistance services. It began operations on December 1, 1987. It is a free bilingual service, accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it uses the same number throughout Québec.
  This telephone service is staffed by the Regroupement provincial des maisons d'hébergement et de transition pour femmes victimes de violence [provincial organization of shelters and half-way houses for physically abused women] and funding is provided by the Department of Justice. Between December 1987 and March 1, 1993, the emergency line received 75,133 calls. Two out of three calls came from women who were the victims of abuse by their spouses, who were looking for information or someone to talk to and one out of three involved a request for accommodation.
• There are also 23 centres providing assistance in cases of and to combat sexual assault and an organization that focuses on women who are the victims of sexual assault. Individual and group meetings are organized to help the victims overcome the consequences of assault. The staff at these centres can also accompany women in their dealings with private and public organizations and to court. These centres generally provide emergency telephone service that is accessible 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
  
• Shelters for physically abused women help these women and their children by providing accommodation, listening and offering assistance, support, information, reference, company and follow-up. They also provide security and confidentiality and enable the women, by providing immediate and appropriate assistance, to come out of their isolation, clarify their situation and make an appropriate decision.
  These homes offer services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and have qualified staff on site. They also co-operate with the various community resources, both by referring cases and by offering the abused women services in addition to those offered by these community facilities.
  An initial funding framework for shelters was adopted in 1987 and a second in December 1992. At the present time in Québec, there are 91 homes and shelters and two umbrella organizations.
  
• Women's health centres are non-profit organizations that have the following objectives: reducing medical intervention, eliminating sexist approaches in medicine and the health system and enabling women to take greater responsibility for their health in order to provide genuine prevention and a reduction in social costs. There are three women's health centres in Québec and a provincial organization was formed on August 20, 1985. This organization does not receive any grants from government.
  
• Women's centres are multi-faceted resources that welcome women who have to assert their own independence in the face of problems that are sometimes very serious such as mental health, violence, poverty, isolation and single parenthood. On August 24, 1989, the Department of Health and Social Services published the first triennial funding plan for women's centres in Québec. The number of centres subsidized by this Department increased from 63 in 1988-1989 to 76 in 1993-1994. There is also an umbrella organization for these women's centres.
  
• In 1984, a guide to action with respect to the victims of sexual assault was prepared and it was designed to ensure that victims would be received with respect and appropriate care, to sensitize the staff involved in dealing with these problems, to facilitate dealings with victims, to combat myths and prejudices and to provide the police and doctors with a medical-legal tool, in th eform of a medical-legal kit, to increase the effectiveness of their work in the case of prosecution.
  The use of this kit, which makes it possible to take samples for medical and legal purposes that supplement the medical and legal examination, is designed to ensure that the victim and the doctors do not have to testify in court. Because it is a complex instrument, this kit was revised in 1987 to make it easier to use.

Information

In February 1988, the Department of Health and Social Services, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Solicitor General launched a major information and publicity campaign on the topic of "La violence conjugale, c'est inacceptable!" [spousal violence is unacceptable]. This consciousness-raising campaign formed part of the 1985 Politique d'aide aux femmes violentées [policy on assistance for abused women] and the 1986 Politique d'intervention de violence conjugale [policy on action with respect to spousal violence]. It was designed to encourage abused women to report the abuse to which they had been subjected and to make use of the judicial system in order to bring home to violent husbands that this system would punish severely the crime they had perpetrated. It was also designed to suggest to victims and violent males concrete means of emerging from the vicious circle of spousal violence.

For six weeks messages on television and radio, in daily and weekly newspapers and on posters and in information brochures formed an integral part of this public relations operation conducted jointly with the regional health and social services boards and the departments of Justice and the Solicitor General.

In order to provide support for the recommendation made by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Commission des droits de la personne in 1993 devoted a special issue of its newsletter Forum Droits et Libertés to the topic of violence against women and more than 8,000 copies were distributed. In the forty pages of this publication, various aspects of violence against women were considered, in particular, male violence, violence as a violation of the rights and freedoms of women and means of eliminating it, violence as a daily occurrence and sexual harassment. The Bulletin also accentuated the scope of recommendation No. 19 of the Committee by reproducing the passage that stated that violence against women was a form of discrimination that compromised or nullified the enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

In a policy document devoted to harassment in housing, which came out in 1993, the Commission stressed the unequal and potentially adversarial character of relations between landlords and tenants, especially the vulnerability of women tenants. The document helped to make it easier to identify harassment and its various manifestations and to make victims more aware of the recourses and remedies that exist to combat such harassment effectively.

In the fall of 1990, the Fédération des ressources d'hébergement pour femmes violentées en difficulté du Québec [federation of housing resources for abused women in difficulty], in co-operation with the Québec Chamber of Notaries adopted an approach to raising community awareness in order to combat violence against women through a media campaign and social activities in a region of the province. In January 1992, the federation also saw the governments join in and its awareness campaign is now geared to all the administrative regions of the province. The Québec Chamber of Notaries, for its part, has again undertaken to conduct the media part of this awareness campaign.

By providing financial support, the various government departments have made it possible to complete and distribute a guide that increases people's awareness of spousal violence and is also an educational tool. This document is distributed in hospitals, local community services centres, assistance services and numerous public places.

* In 1993-94, there were 91 homes and accommodation resources and 2 provincial organizations. Eight resources included here that are not homes as such are subsidized by the DHSS because they provide accommodation as part of specific projects dealing with violence. Two further regions are served: Kativik and the Cree area of James Bay.

** Two women's centres were subsidized in 1993-94 from the discretionary funds of the Minister of Health and Social Services and not from the DHSS budget for community organizations. The total involved was $70,000.

Table prepared by the Secrétariat à la condition féminine, April 1994

Appendix 2

Data provided by the Department of Municipal Affairs, December 1993.
Table prepared by the Secrétariat à la condition féminine, April 1994.

Appendix 3

* Includes both staff that is subject and staff that is not subject to the Public Service Act.

Sources :
(1) Office des ressources humaines, Portrait statistique de l'effectif régulier de la fonction publique du Québec, 1991, p. 224.
(2) Office des ressources humaines, Portrait statistique de l'effectif régulier et occasionnel de la fonction publique du Québec, 1992, p. 150.
(3) Office des ressources humaines, Unpublished data.
Table prepared by the Secrétariat à la condition féminine, April 1994.

Appendix 4

Data provided by the Department of Justice, April 1994. Table prepared by the Secrétariat à la condition féminine, April 1994.