Women's groups wary of victims' of crime plan

[from the London Free Press, Wednesday, December 9, 1998]

Women's groups wary of victims' of crime plan

By JANE SIMS, Free Press Social Services Reporter Women's groups fear a provincial government plan to consolidate victims' services could dismantle their community-based organizations.

A news conference is scheduled at Queen's Park today by the Coalition in Defence of Women's Anti-Violence Services to discuss why they believe the recently announced Victims of Crime Office could be an excuse to stop funding community sexual assault centres and women's shelters.

"If the recommendation is carried out to integrate and co-ordinate programs and services to provide one-stop access to service, we know community-based sexual assault and rape crisis centres will disappear," said Barbara MacQuarrie, communications and funding co-ordinator at the Sexual Assault Centre London, part of the coalition.

But Diane Cunningham, minister of intergovernmental affairs who heads the office of the Women's Directorate, said the new victims' office will "absolutely not" affect community-based women's services. "If she has some concerns she should talk to me about it," the London North MPP said about MacQuarrie's comments.

MacQuarrie said wom-en's organizations have been working for 20 years to respond to the needs of women. "We have a model that works. That model doesn't need to be reformed. It doesn't need to be amalgamated (or) assimilated, into another model. If anything, we need more resources put into that model."

Red flags were raised by the women's community as soon as the announcement was made to create the one-stop access office, aimed at making the criminal justice system more sensitive and responsive to victims of crime. MacQuarrie said it sounded eerily like the McGuire Report of two years ago, "which essentially suggested shutting down community-based rape crisis centres and recommended severely limiting the time women stayed in shelters."

The overall fear is that all women's services will be put under the mantle of the attorney general instead of under the responsibility of the Ontario Women's Directorate.

A high-profile group of victims rights' advocates -- which inc-luded CAVEAT (Canadians Against Violence Everywhere Advocating Its Termination) and Debbie Mahaffy, mother of murder victim Leslie Mahaffy -- applauded the government's move to create the victims' office.

MacQuarrie said she understands their legitimate concerns about the failures of the criminal justice system to be more sensitive to victims, but "women's services, you cannot just put them all into a model that's dealing with criminal justice response."

Community-based women's services go beyond the criminal justice system offering long-term support, counselling services, housing and overall plans to help women get re-established.

The women's organizations fear the victims' office model will institutionalize services for only women who take their cases into the criminal justice system. That would exclude many, such as sexual harassment victims and women who have been sexually abused as children, who don't take their cases to court.

And, MacQuarrie added, the attorney general's office has said a woman has to be assaulted 35 times before she calls the police.

"Next thing you know, the government will be claiming that violence against women has been significantly decreased. In fact, all we'll see is women who have no place to go again, which is where we were 20 years ago when we started all this work."

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