Can’t wait for the Muslim organizations to claim this new law as anti Islamic
National Post…The federal government this afternoon affirmed its zero-tolerance stance against ‘honour killing,’ declaring such “barbaric cultural practices” as “heinous abuses” that have “no place in Canadian society.”
The government is taking gender-based violence “very seriously” and called on women’s groups and members of the immigrant community to do their part in tackling these “heinous abuses, said Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women.
The minister’s announcement at a a press conference at the Punjabi Community Health Service Centre in Mississauga, Ont., was apparently prompted by this weekend’s release of a high-profile report focusing on the growing problem of the abuse of girls and women in Canada’s immigrant communities.
The report, released by the Frontier Centre on Public Policy, outlines 14 recommendations for the federal government — including criminal record checks for men coming to Canada, and mandatory orientation sessions for male sponsors and sponsored women regarding gender-equality in this country.
Ms. Ambrose said the government is already working some of the recommendations and is “looking at” others, including the launch of government-funded programs on local and national television that could be used to reiterate the consequences of abuse.
She also said the government is “looking at” adding ‘honour killing’ as a separate charge to the criminal code.
“If we have a different family dynamic at play, then we have to address that family dynamic,” Ms. Ambrose said, addressing media and about a dozen women and a few men from the community who gathered at the centre.