The Ministry of Justice and Attorney General and the Provincial Partnership Committee on Missing Persons have developed three products to assist families and those working with families in missing person cases. 

Find them online here:  http://www.justice.gov.sk.ca/MissingPersons

Flagging the way forward on sexual assault

By Pamela Cowan, Leader-Post April 30, 2012

More than 1,000 purple flags were planted in Victoria Park’s green lawn on Saturday – visible signs of an invisible issue – sexual assault.

“Sexual assault – they are two words that most people feel very uncomfortable discussing,” said Robin Treso, speaking on behalf of the Regina Women’s Community Centre and Sexual Assault Line (RWCC). “Sexual assault – two ominous and violent words that denote pain and suffering for countless number of people across the globe. Sexual assault is both a crime and a social epidemic. They are two words that we all wish did not exist.”

Each flag represents one of the 1,139 reported sexual assault victims in Saskatchewan in 2010 – the latest year statistics were available, Treso said.

She noted Saskatchewan has the highest sexual assault rate in the country.

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics indicates that nine out of every 10 sexual assaults are never reported, Treso said.

“Increased reporting is so important because we need to continue to shine a bright light on this dark subject,” she told those gathered in the park. “We know there is a lack of reporting and this indicates a reality that sexual assault is still very much an invisible issue in Canadaian society.”

The RWCC hosted the flag-planting event during National Victims of Crime Awareness Week.

“This year’s message is called Moving Forward and that is precisely why we chose to title our event Moving Forward: Flagging the Way Forward,” Treso said. “Services like the Regina Women’s Community Centre and Sexual Assault Line provide supportive and confidential counselling services for sexual assault victims, so that they can truly move forward with their lives. We help victims deal with the impact from the trauma that they have experienced.”

Sexual assault is defined as unwanted sexual contact or intercourse without consent.

Boys and girls must be educated so they learn to treat each other with dignity and equality, said Abby Ulmer, a counsellor with the RWCC.

“It’s important that violence is not tolerated in any way, shape or form,” she said. “Sexual assault is definitely violence and we need to, as a community, do as much as we can to lessen the amount of violence that’s going on out there. No means no. It’s not OK to ever have sexual contact with a person against their will.”

The RWCC offers free counselling services to women who need support in dealing with issues surrounding sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, and relationship violence. Free counselling is provided to men who have experienced sexual assaults as adults.

At Family Service Regina, Tracey Smela is the program coordinator of Choices for Change – a program for men who have either been emotionally or physically abusive in their intimate partner relationships.

“It is a 20-week program where men learn skills, tools and knowledge to change abusive behaviours and then work on changing behaviours on a weekly basis where they are coming to group and doing checkins and helping each other make positive changes in their lives and relationships,” Smela said.

Of those who attend Choices for Change, 75 per cent of men are self referrals and 25 per cent are ordered by the court to attend.

“Abuse isn’t just physical, it’s emotional and sometimes emotional abuse leaves the most scars,” Smela said. “People think that because they’re not physically abusive, they’re not causing any impact to their partners. The reality is that emotional abuse – and there is a wide range of emotional abuse – does leave an impact on the partner and the kids.”

 

Sexual Assault Awareness in Victoria Park

Purple flags were planted to symbolize victims in Saskatchewan

From CJME, reported by Lisa Schick, Apr 28, 2012

The grass in Victoria Park is now a lot more colourful, but it’s not due to flowers.

The Regina Women’s Community Centre and Sexual assault Line (RWCC) helped plant purple flags in the ground Saturday afternoon for their Flagging the Way Forward for Sexual Assault Awareness event.

“We’ve utilized flags to be symbolic of the number of sexual assaults that happened in 2010, and that’s 1,139 victims of sexual assault,” said Robin Treso, a volunteer and board member of the RWCC.

Treso said that number is only a fraction of the real amount because it’s estimated 9 out of every 10 sexual assaults are not reported.

The RWCC used flags becuase they wanted something to illustrate how many victims there are and how much of a problem it is in the province.

Treso said sexual assault is a social epidemic in Saskatchewan.

“Level one sexual assaults are reported the highest rates in Saskatchewan across the country and we really need… to focus some light on that subject and really educate people.”

Treso said it’s important to make people aware of the problem becyase sexual assault violates all human rights.

The RWCC works with victims of sexual assault regularly, they have counselling services for women who have experienced sexual assault as adults and children, and men who have experienced sexual assault as adults. They also have a 24-hour emergency line.

“We really just want to help people through that healing process, ideally stopping sexual assault is what everybody wants, but the reality is that it does exist and we are here to help the community of Regina,” said Treso.

The event is part of this year’s National Victims of Crime Awareness Week.

This is the first year the RWCC has used flags, in previous years the theme was Crossing the Line and they strung up clotheslines in front of city hall.

From the Globe and Mail, Friday, Apr. 13, 2012, by Hamida Ghafour

A year ago, women were front and centre in the Arab Spring uprisings – acting as advocates, smuggling ammunition to rebels, being beaten by police alongside men and caring for the wounded. But now they are in danger of being shunted aside by conservative male leaders such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who threaten to roll back the few rights women enjoy.

Some believe that the new Islamists can reconcile themselves with equal rights for women, under liberal interpretations of sharia law. “Democracy is a process and it can’t happen overnight,” says Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Islamic-law scholar and prominent Iranian-born activist, speaking from London. “But feminism is a quest for justice, and Islam is also about justice.”

Others are more skeptical: In a recent speech in Washington, former Kuwaiti member of parliament Rola Dashti said the Islamists’ claims of moderation are “nothing more than a hidden agenda of radical and extremist ideologies when it comes to social issues and citizens’ rights, especially as it concerns women.”

The old despotic regimes were more secular, and often passed some progressive laws in such areas as marriage, divorce and inheritance, at least partly to appease Western governments. Those measures are now tainted by association, linked to both loose morals and Western colonialism.

“The problem is not with Islam,” Dr. Mir-Hosseini says. “It is with an undemocratic and patriarchal culture.”

PERSONAL STATUS

Divorce

In Egypt, a woman can seek a divorce without her husband’s permission. Today, that is often called “Suzanne Mubarak’s law,” in reference to the former president’s wife, who pushed for reforms. At least one newly elected MP has promised to repeal it.

Polygamy

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya and Morocco are some of the countries that allow men to marry up to four wives, sometimes more. Tunisia and Egypt are among those who banned it long ago. In Libya, polygamy was rarely practised under Moammar Gadhafi, but the new interim Libyan leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, announced in October that polygamy would be allowed, dismaying women’s groups but perhaps trying to appeal to the pious fighters who helped to oust the Gadhafi regime.

Marriage

In Yemen, they are sometimes called the “brides of death”: girls as young as 10, forced to marry men twice their age or older. Nearly half the girls in the country are married before they turn 18, the highest rate in the Arab world, according to United Nations figures. Tawakul Karman, the 2011 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has campaigned to raise the minimum age of marriage to 17, but ultraconservatives have blocked a bill in Parliament.

Ms. Karman, 33, embodies the reforming spirit of the Arab uprisings – she led the first student protests calling for the resignation of Yemen’s president and her arrest triggered mass demonstrations – but also their complexities, as she is a member of a religiously based party, Islah. One of its members, Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, is a former Osama bin Laden adviser.

Because sharia law does not explicitly state a minimum age of marriage, attitudes vary widely: Moroccan women fought for 18 and won in 2004; meanwhile, the Islamist party in Bahrain opposed an effort to set the minimum age at 15.

EDUCATION

The number of women going to college or university in Arab nations is growing. Perhaps surprisingly, the Gulf states head the pack: In Saudi Arabia, which generally imposes harsh restrictions on women’s lives, 60 per cent of all college graduates are women. Sheika Moza bint Nasser, the wife of the ruling emir of Qatar, promotes education, and about 70 per cent of university students there are women. In Tunisia, women account for 62 per cent of university-degree holders.

However, this pattern of younger women being much more highly educated than their mothers’ generation is not translating into careers: According to UN figures, only 25 per cent of Arab women work outside the home.

POLITICS

Political Representation

In Egypt, 28-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz helped to spark the demonstrations last year by posting videos on YouTube challenging the public to march on the streets. But the military rulers who followed made clear their view of women in the public sphere by abandoning the quotas that had guaranteed women 10 per cent of the seats in Parliament. After the elections this winter, only nine women now sit in the new, 498-seat lower house of Egypt’s Parliament.

Over all, the proportion of female representatives in parliaments is just 10 per cent in all Arab countries, according to the UN, but in many countries women are pushing for reserved places in the legislatures.

Kuwait no longer has any female MPs – all four lost their seats in February when religious conservatives came to dominate Parliament. But Tunisia presents a brighter, more complicated picture: A new law requires that women and men must feature equally on party candidate lists, which led to 49 women being elected to the 217-member constituent assembly. Most were from al-Nahda, the moderate Islamist party.

Constitutional Reform

Many reformers are concerned that new national constitutions in the Arab world will be used to push narrow interpretations of sharia law. In Egypt, no women have been appointed to the council drafting the constitution. Meanwhile in Libya, a women’s alliance has lobbied successfully to guarantee women at least 10 per cent of the seats in the assembly that will draft a constitution later this year – but it has already been decided that it will be based on sharia.

In Tunisia, hard-line Salafists took to the streets to demand that sharia be the sole basis of the new constitution, but the moderate-Islamist government ruled it out last month.

The possibility is still worrying, Tunisia-based activist Omezzine Khelifa says. “Today, more than one year after the revolution, lots of women’s hopes of equality have disappeared,” she says. “Debates taking place on whether sharia should be the unique source of Tunisian law, or one among many, showed how far we could be from comprehensive and true equality between men and women.”

 

REGINA — This week, Regina residents are being asked to stop and take the time to discuss the issue of sexual assault.

“Of course it’s a topic that makes people uncomfortable. Just the words make people uncomfortable, but I guess that’s the whole point,” said Debbie House, administrator for the Regina Women’s Community Centre and Sexual Assault Line.

“As soon as we get comfortable with the word, then perhaps people will become more comfortable in talking about it more openly and in reporting to the police.”

Pat Fiacco, mayor of Regina, officially proclaimed the week, which runs until Sunday.

“I think leaders right across the country, especially government leaders, need to ensure that they lend their voice to the cause,” Fiacco said.

“I think it’s becoming less of an issue as far as public discussion is concerned. You here stories of individuals that were victimized years ago that had finally had the … I’m not going to say the word ‘courage’ … It’s about being able to talk about it and feeling that they can.”

To kick off the week. the women’s centre was at the Scarth Street Mall on Monday, handing out magnets to the public, which can be hung on cars, fridges, windows or other visible locations.

The magnets are shaped like a stop sign and coloured teal — the official colour for sexual assault awareness week — and have yellow writing that says, “Stop sexual assault.”

Magnets can also be picked up at the centre’s office (1830 MacKay St.).

Rod McKendrick, an interpersonal violence specialist with Victim Services for Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Justice, said, “It’s important to make the community at large more knowledgeable on the issues around sexual assault and the services that are available to victims of sexual assault.”

According to Statistics Canada, 29 per cent of children will be sexually assaulted before the age of 18. Only eight per cent of sexual assault cases are reported to the police. One of the problems, House said, is the majority of assaults take place by people who are known to the victim — 87 per cent, according to statistics.

“There’s just fear of being re-victimized in court, or not being believed, and all of that,” she said. “People come here for counselling and I would say that a good 80 per cent do not report to the police.”

Fiacco feels it’s important for victims to come forward.

“It should never remain silent because the individuals, the perpetrators, need to be dealt with, so I think it’s important to raise awareness and provide places that victims can go and get help,” he said.

The women’s centre is primarily a counselling service, though it has a 24-hour sexual assault line (352-0434) that fields over 2,500 calls a year. But this week, House said, is more about supporting the victims.

“There are so many kids who have been victimized by adults, whether it’s parents or coaches or teachers, or whatever,” House said. “They carry that with them and it just stays with them and affects every part of their life.

“They don’t even know that until they’re in counselling and see how their behaviours have been altered because of their experiences.”