News Jul 20, 2015 – 9:02 am EDT

New Inuit anti-violence campaign targets bystanders

“Many still think family violence is a private matter”

By LISA GREGOIRE

Pauktuutit President Rebecca Kudloo says she’s hoping a new awareness campaign around violence against women will encourage bystanders to get involved when they see, or suspect, abuse. (FILE PHOTO)

So you come to work one Monday morning and your colleague, who sits next to you, has a black eye she’s tried to conceal with makeup.

You’ve seen it before — the cuts and bruises, the listless behaviour and tearfulness. You suspect her partner is violent and dangerous. You want to help. What do you do?

A new violence awareness and prevention campaign just launched by Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada is aiming its sights at you: the bystander.

With the tagline “Believe Ask Connect.” Pauktuutit is encouraging friends, co-workers, family members and other acquaintances to get involved when they witness or suspect violence.

“We can all help end violence in our homes and communities. We want to encourage and support people to help others. Together we can make changes by listening and talking,” said Rebecca Kudloo, Pauktuutit president, in an email to Nunatsiaq News.

The campaign hopes to encourage people to first “believe” someone’s story, when they disclose it, to “ask” them how they want to deal with it, and then to “connect” them with supports and services in the community.

The campaign, paid for through a $75,000 grant from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, also includes a brochure that has a map of the four Inuit regions of Canada on one side and a list of services in every community on the other.

And just this week, Pauktuutit got confirmation from AANDC that the campaign will get more federal funding.

Pauktuutit submitted a proposal with a budget of $275,000 to pay for additional resource materials and regional consultations to create a national, Inuit-specific strategic plan to address family violence.

It’s unclear whether Pauktuutit will get all the money the organization is seeking, but the project has at least been approved, Pauktuutit sources say.

Suny Jacob, director of the Qimaavik emergency women’s shelter in Iqaluit, said July 17 she supports any campaign that raises awareness around, and seeks to prevent, family violence.

But focusing on the bystander may not always work, she said.

Many Nunavummiut are already burdened by their own responsibilities, she said, and they may be reluctant to reach out to someone for fear it will increase that burden by committing them to future support — housing, money, food.

It might even require them to get involved with police and attend court appearances, if they witness violence, Jacob said. That can be time consuming and demanding.

“It all depends on the personal choice of the person, if they want to be involved or don’t want to be involved, due to all these liabilities,” Jacob said.

“Many people are totally preoccupied with their own personal lives and they do not have time to do anything much further,” she said. “Even if they want to do it, they might not have the wherewithal.”

Jacob said the way to remedy that is to invest in community supports — emergency shelters and mental health services — so that a victim of violence does not have to turn to, and rely on, friends and family members.

Kudloo acknowledged that some bystanders might be reluctant to get involved, but she cited other reasons.

“Many still think family violence is a private matter. We may not want to be seen as interfering, or we may not know how to help. We may think there is nothing we can do to help,” she said.

She’s hoping this campaign can change that.

“We want to raise awareness of violence in our homes and our communities, and encourage people to break the silence. It’s OK to talk about it and say it’s not OK to hurt others.”

According to a February 2013 report from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics called “Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical Trends,” the rate of police-reported violence against women is highest among Canada’s territories — and Nunavut, as usual, leads the pack.

The rate of violent crime against women in Nunavut in 2011 was 13 times higher than the rate for the rest of Canada, said the report from CCJS, a component of Statistics Canada.

The report went on to say that women in Nunavut were 12 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than the provincial average across Canada.

In 2011, 1,715 Nunavut women were victims of police-reported violent crimes compared to 1,014 Nunavut men.

When only sexual offences were considered, Nunavut still had the highest rate.

The report says that in 2011, there were 126 female victims of police-reported sexual offences in Nunavut, translating into a rate of 1,135 per 100,000 population. The Canadian rate for the same category was 99 per 100,000 population.