Violence and Abuse in Canada

Violence in Canada

• Encompasses various forms of abuse, mistreatment, or neglect.
• Can affect adults (both men and women) and children.
• Occurs in dependent, intimate, and/or kinship relationships.

Neglect and Abuse Overview

• General outline includes neglect, abuse, woman abuse, and domestic violence.
• Abuse is experienced by adults and children.
• Abuse is a misuse of power and a violation of trust.
• Abuse can occur once or repeatedly, escalate over time, and change its form.
• Domestic violence can be experienced by both males and females.

Neglect

• Often chronic, involving repeated incidents.
• Includes failing to provide what a child or dependent adult needs for their physical, psychological, emotional development, and well-being.
• Failure to provide or denying food, clothing, shelter, cleanliness, medical care, protection from harm, or a sense of being valued and loved.

Physical Abuse

• Involves the use of physical force that injures someone or puts them at risk for injury.
• Includes beating, hitting, shaking, pushing, choking, biting, burning, and kicking.
• Can include assault with a weapon.
• Dangerous or harmful use of force or restraint can be considered physical abuse.
• All forms of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and sexual exploitation are considered physical abuse.
• Includes using a child for sexual purposes, including prostitution and pornography, denigrating, controlling, or limiting a person's sexuality or reproductive choices.
• Forcing a person to participate in unwanted, unsafe, or degrading sexual activity.

Emotional Abuse

• Involves harming one's sense of self, putting them at risk of serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders.
• Includes attacking a person verbally and using criticism.
• Routinely making unreasonable demands
• Exposing a child to family violence
• Humiliating or degrading a person by purposefully embarrassing them.
• Making trivial demands and focusing on the whims of the abuser.
• Demonstrating power and threats.
• "Crazy-making” involves trying to make the victim crazy by taunting them and manipulating their emotions.
• Emotional distancing involves being cold, not affectionate, and distant.

Verbal Abuse

• May involve withholding information.
• Disparaging comments distinguished as jokes.
• Trivializing, which is invalidating feelings and deeming them insignificant.
• Judging or criticizing remarks and comments, negating or discounting a partner's feelings.
• Blocking or diverting controls interpersonal communication

Economic or Financial Abuse

• Stealing from or defrauding someone.
• Involves withholding money to buy food or medical treatment.
• Manipulating or exploiting someone for financial gain.
• Denying access to financial resources.
• Preventing a person from working or controlling their choice of occupation.

Spiritual Abuse

• Preventing a person from engaging in their spiritual or religious practices.
• Using a person's religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate, or control them.
• Ridiculing or denigrating one's beliefs.

Sexual Abuse

• Forcing someone to participate in unwanted, unsafe, or degrading sexual activity.
• Ridiculing another person to try to limit their sexuality or reproductive choices.
• Forcing someone to look at pornography or participate in making pornographic films.
• It is often linked to physical abuse.

Woman Abuse

• Gender-based violence resulting in (or likely to result in) physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women.
• Involves threats, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
• Occurs in both public and private settings.
• Defined by the United Nations in 1993.

Domestic Violence / Intimate Partner Violence

• Occurs between spouses or intimate partners when one person tries to control the other.
• Victims can be male or female.
• Perpetrator can also be male or female.
• Occurs in heterosexual and same-sex relationships.
• Can happen in teens, adults, and seniors, so age is irrelevant.
• Can occur during the relationship, when the couple is breaking up, or after it has ended.
• It can escalate from threats and verbal abuse to physical abuse.
• Can result in murder.
• Approximately 30% of women reported being assaulted by their male partner at least once.
• 20% reported more than one incident
• 10% reported more than 10 times
• 44% of women reported that a weapon was used against them
• 36% stated the weapon was a gun or knife
• 78% of spousal homicides in Canada involved women
• In 2020, females accounted for 85% of all victims of spousal violence reported to the police.
• "Common assault" is the most commonly reported form of spousal violence.
• In 2020, 8 out of 10 victims of criminal harassment had some form of relationship with their stalkers.
• Females are more at risk of being killed by their spouse than males.
• The risk is higher among younger and common-law spouses.
• Male spouses are 3x more likely as female spouses to be sentenced to prison on conviction of spousal violence.

Inaccurate Statistics

• Inaccurate statistics can be the result of: victims not knowing who to turn to for reporting, young or very old victims, victims not able to communicate, fear of being stigmatized, cultural views, lack of knowledge about signs, fear of the abuser, or victim not thinking abuse is serious.
• People with disabilities often have limited access to authorities or communication devices.
• Geographical isolation
• Social Isolation
• Victims don't believe the criminal justice system can be effective.

Potential Consequences of Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence

• Sleeping difficulties (e.g., insomnia, hypersomnia).
• Depression.
• Anxiety.
• Feelings of abandonment.
• Low self-esteem.
• Lack of trust in others.
• Substance abuse.
• Anger.
• Sensitivity to rejection.
• Inability to work.
• Poor relationships with children and other loved ones.

Consequences on Children

• Children who witness violence can develop emotional, behavioural, developmental, or academic problems.
• Children may become violent or withdraw.
• May act out at home or school or try to be perfect children.
• Children and teens who witness violence may be more likely to use violence, attempt suicide, use drugs, commit crimes, especially sexual assault, use violence to enhance their reputation and self-esteem, and become abusers later in life

Profile of a Batterer

• Displays traditional sex role expectations
• Experiences communication deficits.
• Shows poor control over impulses.
• Presents with low self esteem.
• Has alcohol/drug problems.
• Abusive childhood
• Denial

Unintended Victims

• Includes people who have seen or heard one person being assaulted by another.
• It is usually children observing parents
• Happens in approximately 1/2 million households in Canada.

Cycle of Violence

• Battering does not occur constantly but rather in a cycle.
• Three phases include tension building, acute battering incident, and honeymoon stage

Phase 1: Tension Building Phase

• Tension builds between the couple.
• Stressors (e.g., finances, children, work) may increase levels of stress.
• This phase may include verbal, emotional, or physical abuse.
• "Stop gap" methods, such as avoidance, placating, and giving in, are used.

Phase 2: Acute Battering Incident

• Involves an uncontrollable discharge of built-up tension.
• Trigger is not the partner but external stressors.
• This type of battering is more serious and intense than that seen in the first phase.
• Characterized by a complete lack of predictability.
• Only the abuser can end the incident.

Phase 3: Honeymoon Phase

• Typically dominates by apologies, excuses and promises to reform.
• The abuser realizes that they have gone too far.
• Abusers realizes that they have gone to far. 
• Bonding becomes stronger
• Exhibiting loving behaviour and promises.
• Can result in victims becoming increasingly difficult to leave.
• Trade off between periods of abuse and "peace and happiness."
• Tension has dissipated and both people are relieved.
• Couples start to become very close emotionally due to it never happening again.

Why Someone Stays

• Fear
• Lack of resources
• Lack of finances/ economic reality
• Children present
• Feelings of guilt
• Promises of reform
• Sex-role condition
• Societal acceptance
• religious beliefs that dictate that they cannot leave
• Abuser's right to beat their partner.
• Part of the community, no one else seems to mind, people will disagree, but feel its a "private matter".
• Reinforcement of violence from abuser to women using clips from papers.
• Love for spouse.

Battered Woman Syndrome

• Legal defense for battered women who have killed their abuser
• Perceiving there is no way out of the relationship
• Contributing factors include the traumatic effects of victimization, learned helplessness, self destructive behaviors in response to violence, and repeated cycles of abuse