The Ending Violence Association of BC (EVA BC) continues to have serious concerns about the growing number of domestic violence deaths in the province, and the lack of investment in programs to help at-risk girls, women and children.
Gail Edinger is the local regional co-ordinator for women's safety for EVA BC, and she says the South Cariboo, like much of the province, needs more community-based services providing on-the-ground, local advocacy.
"In a small community like 100 Mile House, what we have is a stopping the violence counsellor, in a Safe Home Program [that] is minimally funded."
This counsellor's mandate does not include the kind of advocacy necessary for a woman at risk to navigate the justice system and have support in the courtroom, Edinger explains.
"That's why so many women don't make it to court, and why so many of the cases fall through because there isn't the proper support."
She adds a police-based victims' services worker provides support to these women in the 100 Mile House area, but also to victims of other crimes, so this worker is "pretty strapped" for time.
B.C. has witnessed a brutal outbreak of domestic violence-related murders, attempted murders and suicides that have left at least 18 people dead so far this year, Edinger notes.
EVA BC's Sept. 3 press release, Seven years after Oak Bay, is online at www.endingviolence.org, and a related release by the province is at www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2013-2017/2014CFD0022-001289.htm.
The EVA BC release refers to the 2007 murders of Sunny Park and her family by Park’s husband, Peter Lee, in Oak Bay. Investigations revealed Park was not connected to any community-based victim service under escalating violence and lethal threats by her husband.
The government release states it has launched a three-year, $5.5-million Provincial Domestic Violence Plan after extensive public anti-violence stakeholder consultations.
However, Edinger says that is not nearly enough to put direct funding in communities and more people on the ground to sufficiently assist and protect these women at risk.
She explains more preventive, rather than reactive measures are needed, such as for the wife-mandated counselling for abusive men, “which obviously needs significant support.”
A community-based victims' services team can address that, as well as other much-needed victims' services for indigenous women, immigrants and non-status women, she adds.
Edinger says a "very broad-spectrum response" is required to ensure awareness in the medical community, social services and schools, as well as programs so appropriate responses to abuse are made.
"Domestic violence is the core of all social ills in the world ... it starts in the home and children are exposed to it and they learn it and they grow up with it.
"It's absolutely crucial, and it's epidemic."