Intimate partner sexual abuse/violence is poorly understood and under-recognized, both by the women who experience it and those who provide services to them. And yet, in Canada in 2011, 17% of sexual assault reported to the police were committed by current or former partners of the women making the report.
Sexual control/violence within an intimate relationship can look like many things,
A family court case can be confusing to anyone who is not familiar with the process. For a woman who is dealing with trauma as a result of past and ongoing abuse by her partner, it may be completely overwhelming.
She may need to apply for legal aid. She needs to figure out what issues she needs to resolve.
This post focuses on intimate partner abuse of older women, although older women can also be subjected to abuse by other family members, particularly adult children and/or professional caregivers, whether they live in the home or in an institution.
Young women under the age of 24 are at the highest risk of being killed by their partner or former partner,
Dual charging or counter charging of women is one of the direct results of the mandatory charging policy. This is a serious, if unintended, consequence, and rates of dual/counter charging remain high in Ontario.
Both women and their children feel the consequences of dual/counter charging.
The abuser gains even more power and control because he knows his partner is unlikely to call the police again if she gets charged when she does so.
Forced marriage is a practice in which a marriage takes place without the free consent of either or both of the people getting married.
Arranged marriage can appear similar to forced marriage, inasmuch as family members are involved in selecting people for their son or daughter to consider as a possible spouse.
People must be at least 18 years of age to marry in Ontario. People as young as 16 years of age can marry if they have the written consent of both sets of parents. People of the same sex can marry.
Generally, marriages from outside Canada are recognized as legally valid here if they were performed according to the laws of the country where they took place.
A relatively new concept in Canada, voice of the child reports are one technique to ensure that children have the opportunity to be heard in custody proceedings. Such a report, sometimes known as the views of the child, provides information about what the child thinks about his or her life and the issues in dispute between the parents to the court to assist in the decision making process.
Many legal issues arise when a couple separates: custody and access, financial issues and dividing the family property are often the most pressing. Some people decide to attempt to resolve these issues without going to court and use one of a variety of alternative dispute resolution techniques.
Arbitration is one of these techniques.
UPDATED (from April 2015): Women who leave abusive relationships are often reluctant to pursue their financial rights. There are many reasons for this. Some women don’t know they may have a right to share in the family property or to receive support from their spouse. Others feel overwhelmed with the separation process,
Violence against women services generally are seeing more and more women with co-occurring issues. There are a number of reasons for this:
As other community services become underfunded and over-extended, they are referring clients to VAW services
Women who have experienced abuse and are also dealing with mental health or substance use issues prefer the non-judgmental,
