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Housing, childcare services, education and training are all important for women to achieve equality. They are important keys to unlock the doors trapping women in violent situations, whether in a personal relationship, forced sexual exploitation or trafficking, sexual harassment situations or other oppressive conditions. Why?
Housing The poverty and low incomes women face leave many of them unable to pay for market rental housing. For women on social assistance, the situation is worse. In Ontario, social housing development stopped when the Tories were elected in 1995. Not much has happened to change the housing crisis since then. The Liberals promised to build 20,000 units for “needy families” but have not come remotely close to fulfilling that promise. Many women remain in or return to abusive situations because they can’t find safe housing they can afford. Ontario women shelters report that social assistance rates and lack of housing are the top two systemic barriers for women leaving an abusive relationship. Women who are poor are forced to live in unsafe conditions, sometimes with acquaintances or friends that sexually assault and harass them. They are often the targets of landlords who sexually abuse them. They don’t have the means to buy security systems or other safety mechanisms that others take for granted. Women who become homeless are at very high risk of violence against them by men. Some facts: - Of renters in Canada, 72% of single women over 65, 42% of female lone parents and 38% of single women under age 65 have trouble paying for their housing.
- There were 122,426 low-income households in Ontario on active social housing waiting lists at the beginning of 2006.
- 96% of Ontario Works recipients are tenants but only 17% of them are in subsidized housing; 76% of Ontario Disability Support Benefits recipients are tenants but only 22% live in subsidized housing.
- Women’s shelters across Canada report that lack of affordable housing for women leaving shelters is one of their top three challenges.
- A Toronto study found that 1 in 4 women tenants were sexually harassed by landlords, their agents or other male tenants.
- In another study, a Toronto agency found that over half of homeless women had been sexually assaulted in the previous year; 1 in 5 had been raped, and sexual harassment was commonplace.
More resources: Canada’s Shelters for Abused Women, 2003/04. Statistics Canada, Juristat, June 2005. No Room of Her Own: A literature review on women and homelessness. Sylvia Novac, 1996. Rental Housing in Ontario: Quick facts compiled by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTU). And Vacancy Rates and Rents in Ontario: Charts. Compiled by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTU). On Her Own: Young women and homelessness in Canada. Canadian Housing and Renewal Association with researchers Sylvia Novac, Luba Serge, Margaret Eberle and Joyce Brown, 2002. Child Care Women are the main caregivers of children. Because of this responsibility, they have less flexibility in their work than many men and are less able to put in the hours at work to get ahead. They also face more stress trying to balance work and home life because housework and child care is not equally shared by male partners. When mothers leave an abusive relationship they become poorer but still have full responsibility for the children in most cases. This is true whether or not there is a child support or joint custody order from a family court. Mothers’ care of their children is one of the main reasons why women are poorer than men.
Mothers need regulated, affordable quality care for their children so they can work, go to school or train for a better future. But most women can’t afford the cost of child care, subsidies for child care are limited, and affordable quality child care spaces are too scarce for most low-income working women to find in their local communities. Some facts: - Only 9% of children under age 12 in Ontario who need some form of child care have access to a regulated child care space.
- Of these children, less than half of their mothers receive any kind of publicly-funded subsidy to pay for their child care.
- The median yearly cost of a regulated child care space in Ontario ranges from $6500 to $9500 for one child, depending on where you live and the age of the child.
- In Ontario, from two-thirds to three-quarters of women whose youngest child is age 5 or less, are working.
More resources: Child Care Fact Sheet 2006—Ontario. Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care (OCBCC). Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care Progress Report on Child Care in Ontario. June 2006. Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada: Universality and Accessibility; Inclusion; Fact Sheet 1; Fact Sheet 2. Training and Education Why are training and education for women critical ingredients in any plan to end violence against women? The education and training of women and girls is linked to their ability to challenge and overcome inequality by taking control of their own destiny or re-building independent lives after experiencing violence. Violence can also have a severe impact on women’s ability to access education and training. Sexual violence and harassment has been instrumental to the interruption of education for many girls and young women in both high school and post-secondary education. Abusive partners often disrupt or deny any chances for women to receive language education, work upgrading, continuing education courses and even Workfare training. Lack of education and training opportunities traps women in low-paying and exploitive work, makes them more dependent on men and decreases their sense of self-worth. Without opportunities to develop skills and knowledge development, girls and young women are further vulnerable to exploitive sex work and homelessness. Although education is one area where women in general have seen a lot of progress over the last few decades, many women—especially low-come women in all communities have not reaped enough of the benefits. Sexist attitudes still prevent many women from entering high paying male dominated fields, such as trades and technology. Tuition fees for post-secondary education continue to exclude low-income students. Lack of language programs, literacy programs and employment upgrading and training programs for women leave many women shut out of any chance to advance. Lack of access to programs in rural and remote areas, to child care during training, and to financial support for programs are also part of the picture. While higher education or skills can’t keep women safe from violence, they are keys to unlock some of the traps keeping women in dangerous situations. Some facts: - Women on Ontario Works report that they are unable to get the supports they need—child care, transportation, ESL, etc.—to allow them to access programs to escape welfare and that Workfare in Ontario is more an obstacle than a support.
- Although the Liberal government in Ontario froze college and university tuition fees for two years in 2004 it has now reversed that policy. Ontario students still pay the second highest tuition fees in Canada.
- 16% of the population of Ontario speaks neither English nor French as a first language. In Toronto, that percentage rises to 41%. Funding from the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement (designed to transfer $920 million over 5 years to Ontario for settlement services) has recently been used to announce increases in Ontario for “occupation-specific” language training.
More resources: Walking on Eggshells: Abused Women’s Experiences of Ontario’s Welfare System (2004) Tuition Fees in Canada: A Pan-Canadian Perspective on Educational User Fees. Canadian Federation of Students, 2005 Violence and Learning: Taking Action. Edited by Mary Norton. 2004 Parkdale Project Read: A community literacy project that operates an adult learning centre. Access Diminished: A Report of Women’s Training and Employment Service in Ontario. (ACTEW 2000) Renewing Toronto’s ESL Programs: Charting a Course Towards More Effective ESL Delivery. Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, 2005. |
