By Duncan Cairns-Brenner

Poverty biggest issue facing women, says advocates

Mar 6, 2016 | 9:44 AM

Poverty is the number one issue women face in North Battleford, said women’s advocates and aid workers during an International Women’s Day event at United Church on Friday, March 4.

“Poverty leaves people open to exploitation,” Eleonore Sunchild, a First Nations lawyer specializing in residential school cases, said during a speech. It is poverty, she said, that keeps indigenous women subjugated.

Many young women’s issues stem from the “impoverished areas or home that they physically live in,” Kayla Kravetz, an outreach worker with Concern for Youth, said.

“We’re just here for advice and to encourage [young women], as a lot of these girls don’t have that at home, and they don’t have role models.”

Kravetz is concerned about the limited familial supports many young women have, with outreach workers and teachers having to provide positive leadership roles.

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The problems young women face all “stem from their home lives,” she said. Sometimes Concern for Youth outreach workers make home calls and the complete dysfunctional breakdown in communication between youth and parents or guardians is very obvious, Kravetz said. 

The unavailability of safe affordable housing is extremely detrimental to the women in this community, Battlefords Interval House executive director Ann McArthur said. There are few vacancies and the ones that are available are too expensive for a lot of women, especially single parent families. 

“We’re hoping to have all women realize that they don’t have to live with abuse or violence of any form. If they are living with it, [we hope they] understand it’s not their fault and that they have a place they can go to become safe and hopefully make a better life for themselves and their children.”

The impact of violence on children is insurmountable warned McArthur. The intergenerational cycle of violence that stems for abuse carries on and on, but if a women can get out of a violent situation, it not only helps her but her children as well.

“Lots of the women we work with, not all live in poverty, but have issues around poverty and home security,” Kent Lindgren, the HIV Co-ordinator for Battlefords Family Health Centre, said.

Saskatchewan has the highest rate of HIV positive individuals in Canada, with numbers on some reserves rivaling HIV rates in some African nations.

Women in Saskatchewan usually contract HIV through heterosexual intercourse, or intraveinous drug use Lindgren said.  

“Those are pretty intricately linked to addiction which has underlying issues of trauma, abuse [and] for our situation residential schools. The effects that have come out of that have a huge impact on new rates of HIV. Part of it is that there are lots of younger women being exposed to HIV, having HIV transmitted to them, and that is a result of being in situations in relationships that are not always equal.”

There needs to be better education and a more open dialogue with our youth about sexual health, Lindgren suggested, including talk about anatomy and healthy relationships.

 dcairnsbrenner@jpbg.ca