Desi News Corp - Index

Desi News Corp - Desi News - March 2009 - Index

their process through family
court with no information
about the relevant laws. The
FLEW project means that these
women will have access to
accurate, easy-to-understand
legal information and will be
in a better position to make
informed choices for themselves
and their children”, said
Lisa Cirillo, legal and project
coordinator of FLEW.
As legal director of
METRAC and member
of the management
committee at YWCA, Zahra
Dhanani has spent countless
hours working with women and
on anti-violence issues for
close to two decades.
She has been involved with
every political and progressive
movement – specially those
related to immigrant and
women’s issues – that one can
think of.
Apart from the obvious –
that women are drawn to
women’s causes – Dhanani is
in the fight because from a very
young age she says she has witnessed
all kinds of violence
against women.
“Lots of mistreatment of
women. In my own home,
personally, in my family, all of
that. Women face unimaginable
torture. But beyond that, there
are the issues of day-to-day
equality. And all this contributed
to a strong consciousness
in me around equality,”
she says.
Since her university days,
Dhanani has been working in
women’s issues and since
becoming a lawyer, more actively
so.
Defending the need for
child and women-specific
legislation in this day and age
when we assume that everyone
is equal in the eyes of the law,
Dhanani says people tend to
think of Congo or Somalia
when the talk turns to the
violation of women’s rights. But
right here in Canada, the movement
to create equality within
the law is not that old.
“Up until 1950, our legal system
was completely biased. Up
until then, a woman was seen
as a man’s property. In the past,
after a divorce, a man would
claim all assets because he had
gone out to earn the money
while the wife stayed home to
support him and bring up the
family. There were huge, huge
disparities.
“It was only when the law
was changed to mean equalization
of property that the woman
got her fair share. Shockingly,
it was only in the 80s that it
became illegal for a man to rape
his wife.”
Family Law 101
A woman fleeing an abusive marriage was granted
custody of her children. She relocated to Toronto
to begin a new life. Her husband was granted open
access to the children. He followed her, showed
up at all hours, threatened her. He told her if she
didn’t allow him in, he could have her arrested.
The woman did not know enough to ask for access
to be defined. She didn’t know that she could have
asked for supervised access. Would her experience
have been different had she known her rights?
She says METRAC had a ‘court
watch’ program where representatives
used to attend hearing
to determine if things had
improved dramatically over the
last 10 to 15 years; if it was a
brighter picture in terms of
judges’ and lawyers’ biases.
They found it was not so.
In the past, when a woman
went to court over sexual assault,
bringing up her sexual
history was common practice.
She was a slut, the alleged perpetrator’s
lawyers would say,
the implication being that it
wasn’t assault when such a
woman was involved.
“Rape shield laws were created
to prevent such evi-dence
from being presented. But we
found that it continues to be
presented today,” says Dhanani.
“There are still some serious
problems with the criminal justice
system. So even though we
have made some advances,
women do not feel that if they
report the violence they have
experienced, they will be protected
or that the justice system
will work for them.”
That’s because law is based
on technicalities. Based on whether
there is existing evidence or
not, the case may get diverted to
a community program but not
have a hearing, she explains.
“Prior to being formalized
under the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms, gender equality
was elusive. We are talking about
5000 years of prejudice. We are
talking about societies where a
woman’s whole identity was
bound up in this man is the beall
and end-all thinking, where
generations of women are
brought up to believe that their
future depends on getting
married and ‘settling down’.”
Talking about Aqsa Pervez,
the teenager who was allegedly
killed by her father because her
behaviour was culturally unpalatable,
Dhanani says a misappropriation
of cultural identity
and a fear of being called racist
prevents many of us from
facing certain issues head on.
“Incest, physical child abuse,
domestic abuse...it’s all happening
in our communities. We
should be talking about these
issues, we should be asking
questions.”
We should be talking about
Aqsa Pervez. The issue was not
that she wanted to wear a hijab
or not wear one, that she wanted
to wear tight clothes or wanted
to listen to a certain kind of
music, but that this was a case
of violence in our families.
This is not unique to our
culture, Dhanani clarifies. It’s
not even that it’s happening
more in our communities. It’s
that when we don’t talk about
it, the victims get re-victimized.
Dhanani herself is open
about being bisexual,
about having experienced
violence, and says
while a lot of people come up
and thank her for talking about
issues no one else will raise, she
has her share of critics, too.
But the way she sees it, she
one of the lucky ones.
“Oh, hugely blessed,” she
says. “I have three university
degrees; I am successful in my
career; I have my own house
March 2009 Desi News 11