May 26, 2009


Women who enter war know the risks. Canada's female
soldiers are prepared for a mission filled with danger.

Women who enter marriage don't expect to be harmed. The
mission of marriage is to build loving relationships.
Despite high expectations the outcome is often the same - -
injury and death.

The terrain of the battleground and the family should be
poles apart. But Brian Vallee finds the view remarkably
similar. The former reporter for CBC's Fifth Estate says
that domestic violence is a "war on women."

He was in Kamloops recently to speak to the Elizabeth Fry
Society.

Vallee risks overuse of the use of war as a figure of
speech. Wars have become an excuse for almost anything.
The war on terrorists is a thinly disguised war on Arabs.
The war on drugs is an excuse for U.S. occupation of
Columbia.

But Vallee doesn't use the phrase lightly. The statistics
are stark. They reveal that five times as many Canadian
women are killed or wounded as soldiers and police officers
combined. Dozens of women are shot, stabbed, strangled, or
beaten to death by their partners each year. Hundreds more
are subjected to what can only be described as torture.
Thousands more flee their homes like refugees on the run
from a war zone.

We mourn the deaths of soldiers and police who pay the
ultimate sacrifice in the duty of our county but the
domestic deaths of women go relatively unnoticed.

"Whenever a police officer is shot or otherwise feloniously
killed in the line of duty, hundreds of police officers from
all over North America gather for the funeral," says Vallee
in his book The War on Women.

When Capt. Nicola Goddard was killed in battle, the nation
mourned the death of our first female soldier in
Afghanistan. Millions watched live national media coverage
of her funeral and subsequent burial with full military
honours. Yet the battlefield that passes for family life
and the collateral damage children's lives rarely raises an
eyebrow.

Sacrificing your life for country is a noble cause. Is
sacrificing your life for family any less?

Even we fail to be moved by their silent sacrifice, maybe
the economic costs will.

The Canadian government estimates the annual cost of
violence against women at $1.1 billion in direct medical
costs alone. That figure rises to more than $4 billion a
year when social services, lost productivity, lost earnings,
police, court and prison costs are factored in.

Those women who are not killed flee their home seek the
refuge. Last year, 100,000 women were on the run from
violence. The worsening economy is heating up the conflict.

The Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter has seen an
unprecedented increase in recent months. "There is more
stress in families and the abuse is getting much worse,"
says a manager of the shelter.

Women on the run from violence take their children.
Shelters help them heal from psychological and physical
wounds. Children who witness abuse have been traumatized by
the experience. A safe place allows for family bonding and
time for children to play in peace without looking over
their shoulders for the terrorist.

Despite the abuse, women are dedicated to the mission. They
say they will not go back to the abuser but they do. Ninety
per cent say they will not return but eventually 57 per cent
succumb to the hope of a peaceful home.

They want to make the family work. They believe, against
all odds, that their male partner will reform his violent
ways.

Men appear less dedicated to ending the war. Driven by
seething rage and wild demons, they carry out their grim
undertaking with the determination of a suicide bomber.

Soon afterwards, women and children are on the run again.
Twenty five per cent of women in shelters are return visits.
Eventually, the grim reality of unreformed time-bomb at home
sinks in and they leave for good; although the bleak
scenario plays itself out an average of ten times before
that happens.

We wring our hands at the violence against women around the
world. We abhor female "circumcision" (mutilation) in
Africa, "honour" killing in Pakistan, abortions of a healthy
female fetus in China. We cluck at the rape of women in
Afghanistan.

Let's stop masking the killing of women with politically
correct terms such as "family violence." Call it a war on
women if that's what it takes.
 

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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