By Eliana Clay

The police often get a bad reputation for the ways they treat violence against women. There are horror stories of police telling women that family violence is a personal matter, and that date rape is not really rape. Verona Singer does not fit this picture.

Singer is a Criminologist who has been working to address violence against women for 24 years. She has worked at shelters for battered women, on anti-poverty initiatives, and at a sexual assault centre. For the last 12 years, she has been the Coordinator of Victim Services with the Halifax Regional Police, where she works with women who are abused in intimate relationships. Singer is also a PhD student at Dalhousie University, where she is researching intimate-partner femicide.

Halifax has a Victim Services unit—not all Canadian cities are so lucky. It ensures that victims are well taken care of, and works to increase community trust. In the Halifax Regional Municipality, Victim Services reviews all cases of domestic violence reported in the last 24 hours, and contacts victims with case and resource information. In 2007, over 3000 intimate partner violence calls were reported to the Halifax Regional police. This may seem like a lot, but Verona reminds us that for every time a woman calls the police, there are many more times when she does not or cannot call for help.

“Nowadays, we may think oh my gosh, it’s 2008, we’ve been at this issue of violence against women and women abuse for about 30 years. You would think that they would know where to go, but you know, I don’t think they do, because there aren’t a lot of public education campaigns out there.”

Singer warns us not to judge women who choose to stay in abusive relationships. In order to cope, victims often minimize or deny violence. For some, violence has become a normal part of their social environment, while others have been isolated from their friends and family because of their partners. In order to break free from an abuser, a woman needs tenacity, money, family and community support, and knowledge of resources.

If a woman chooses to report abuse, she still has to survive the justice system. The scales of justice are not balanced. “Court is incredibly intimidating for women, and can also re-victimize women… because she’s terrified to death to go up on that stand and to tell her story, and if he has a lawyer that lawyer may attack her… Most of the time our court systems are not victim friendly.”

Victim blaming is common. “I see it in police reports, I see it when I listen to crown prosecutors, and when I read court reports that blame the victim… that victims ask for it, that if she had left the first time then she wouldn’t have been beat up the second time, that if she hadn’t walked home late from the bar she wouldn’t have been raped… We have done a really abysmal job at trying to prevent violence… and what we have left is to blame the victims for their behaviour.”

There is potential for Halifax to address violence against women more respectfully and effectively. First, more funding can be directed to community-level prevention and intervention programs that help decrease abuse.

In court, women need more advocates to help them navigate the system. Specialized domestic violence and sexual assault courts can be created. Everyone in these courts would have an extremely good understanding of the dynamics of violence against women. Women would be allowed to work with crown prosecutors to present their voices.

At a personal level, we need to talk about the issue. “People can’t have tired eyes [about the issue] because every day, every minute, a woman in the world experiences violence… solely because of her gender.”

“We need to contextualize violence against women in different cultures and backgrounds, and not say that all violence against women is the same. We have to take into consideration historical violence and racism and sexism for immigrant women, for Black women, for First Nations women. But, when a woman is hit by her intimate partner or slapped in the face, a slap is a slap, a punch is a punch. It hurts just the same as it would hurt any woman. The shock is just the same, the disbelief is just the same, the wish to have it not happen anymore is just the same.”

In spite of the many tired eyes Singer encounters, she is still hopeful. She finds hope in feminists who work for change, and in the young people who will carry on their work. She herself is a source of hope, as she provides a strong voice for women within the police, and as she commits herself to research that will shed light on more solutions.

Eliana Clay is a graduate student in Women and Gender Studies at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. She is also an intern with Oxfam Canada in the Maritimes. Eliana’s project, 16 Stories for 16 Days, raises awareness of the issue of violence against women through story sharing—one story a day for 16 days, all from different perspectives. Why? According to Eliana, “How can we begin to fix something we can’t even talk about?”