Final Report Released Today
Dr. Kim Stanton has completed a one-year independent systemic review of the legal system’s treatment of sexual violence and intimate partner violence in British Columbia; She’s sharing her Final Report today.
Dr. Stanton said, “Gender-based violence is not a private issue; it creates real risks and has immense human and fiscal costs. It must be understood as a matter of pressing public concern. It is pervasive, it is preventable, and it is in all of our interest to act now to address it.”
Improving BC’s Legal System
“The Final Report includes two sets of recommendations:
Remove Systemic Barriers
First, the Final Report identifies systemic barriers that must be removed to achieve meaningful progress in improving how the legal system treats sexual violence and intimate partner violence.
Those barriers are:
- the presence of silos within and between government agencies;
- a lack of accountability on the part of institutional actors;
- a failure to appreciate the profound cost to society of inaction to address gender-based violence;
- and the absence of intersectional analysis in system and program design.
Nine recommendations provide a clear path for addressing these system-wide barriers, and the need for both accountability and leadership to make our communities safer.
Survivors of Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence Deserve Better Treatment
Second, I have proposed a dozen constructive steps to improve the legal system’s treatment of survivors of sexual violence and intimate partner violence.
The final recommendation is a call to reimagine what justice can look like by those inside and outside the legal system: small changes are not sufficient to solve complex problems.
The preventive and restorative approaches recommended in this Report provide a roadmap to the province on providing meaningful access to justice to survivors of gender-based violence.”