PATHS Letter to Regina City Council: Strip Club Application Denied

PATHS Letter to Regina City Council:
Strip Club Application Denied
by Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Member Programs and Services
On January 26th, 2015, the Regina
City Council voted on an application
from an Alberta businessman to open
a strip club in Regina. At the City
Council meeting nineteen concerned
citizens, who spoke on behalf of various organizations, delivered presentations urging Council not to approve
this application. It was standing room
only at the Council meeting and the
Mayor and several Councillors remarked that they had never received
such a high volume of emails and
phone calls about a municipal issue,
noting that nearly every person who
contacted them was against the proposed strip club. City Council voted to
deny the application and received a
standing ovation from the crowd at
the meeting.
PATHS delivered a presentation to City
Council and also wrote a letter, signed
by 65 members of the community, encouraging Council to deny the application. PATHS argued for the denial of
the application citing violence faced by
the individuals (most often women)
who work at such establishments, and
the harms that a strip club would bring
not just to those employed there but to
the community as a whole.
In this letter, we wrote:
Dear Regina City Council,
We are writing to express our concern
over the application before Council to
develop an adult-entertainment venue
at 1047 Park St. in Ward 6, in hopes
that you will vote against approving
this application.
While the proposed club may not violate any bylaws, we are concerned
about the harmful effects that a strip
club in Regina would have, not only on
girls and women, but on boys and men
as well. While the business of strip clubs
is nothing new and is expanding
throughout North America, there is
much evidence to show that the effects
of strip clubs have not been positive.
Right now, Council has the opportunity
to decide if this is something that
should be allowed to take place in Regina.
Violence against women is a problem in
Saskatchewan, where we currently have
the highest rates of sexual assault
among the provinces (Brennan & Taylor
-Butts, 2007), as well as the highest rate
of intimate partner violence (Statistics
Canada, 2011). Hundreds of women
have been murdered or gone missing
in Saskatchewan in recent decades.
In This Issue:
Strip Club Application Denied
1– 2
Human and Animal Violence Victims
3
International Women’s Day
4
Family Violence Statistics
5
#50DollarsNot50Shades
6– 7
Social Media
7
Member Directory
8
Several studies detail the danger
for women who work in strip clubs.
Holsopple (1998) conducted research with 18 strippers in Minnesota and “found that 100% of the
women were physically abused in
the clubs… Forty-four percent of
the women reported that the men
threatened to hurt them, with a
range of 3 to 150 such threats. The
violence included attempted vaginal penetration with fingers (61%),
penetration with objects (33%), and
attempted rape (17%)” (cited in
Raphael and Shapiro, 2004, p. 127).
Another study of 30 strippers and 8
club employees in 10 Ontario strip
clubs backs this up, citing a number of health and safety concerns
experienced by those employed in
strip clubs (Maticka-Tyndale et al.,
continued on page 2…
Page 2
… continued from page 1
2000). Raphael and Shapiro (2004)
conducted an interview with 222
women involved in the sex trade and
reported that “Exotic dancers reported a high prevalence of being threatened with a weapon and threatened
with rape…[they say that this] data
also challenges the view of strip
clubs as harmless entertainment” (p.
136). Security in the clubs unfortunately does not always keep women
safe, as almost all women in Holsopple’s 1998 study “had been stalked—
from one to seven times each—by
someone associated with the
club” (cited in Jeffreys, 2008, p. 164).
As well as the danger women who
work in strip clubs experience, there
are harmful effects to other members of the community as well. A
strip club in Regina sends the message that women are available for
purchase for men’s sexual entertainment. This sends dangerous messages to young men about healthy relationships and respect for women and
girls.
The issue of recruiting women to
work in strip clubs is an important
issue to be considered. Until 2012,
Canada provided temporary foreign
worker permits to exotic dancers,
because, as one lawyer declared,
“Canadian women won’t take the
jobs” (Macklin, 2003, p. 5). While this
policy was changed in 2012, newcomer women who are already in
Canada who are recruited for this
work could be especially vulnerable,
as could racialized women or women
who are otherwise marginalized.
Strip clubs are often viewed as a
place for business transactions, with
men attending with colleagues and
clients. Not only does this practice
exclude women from valuable
knowledge transmission pertinent to
their work, but “strip clubs offer men
the opportunity to debase women,
not just to bond and do business in
their
absence.
These
new
‘gentlemen’s clubs’ require women
to be present—but only when they
are naked and available to be
bought” (Jeffreys, 2008, p. 169).
In summary, while many will argue
that strip clubs simply provide an
acceptable form of entertainment for
consenting adults, we would argue
that a form of entertainment that
says women are commodities to be
purchased is not an entertainment
option that Regina needs. The commodification and sexual exploitation
of women does nothing to increase
the equality and safety of women
and girls and does nothing to provide positive, healthy examples for
young men.
***
The proposed strip club would be
licensed, as the Province of Saskatchewan changed legislation in 2014,
which now allows liquor to be served
in establishments where stripping is
present.
Following the Council’s denial of the
application, Mayor Michael Fougere
said “Council acted under its discretion, as is right under the law, to say
no to the application.” After the decision was made by Council, a petition
was started by those who support a
strip club, in an attempt to urge the
City to reconsider their decision.
Read about the decision on the CBC
website (www.cbc.ca/news/canada/
saskatchewan/strip-club-deniedregina-council-gets-standingovation-1.2931466) and on the Global News website (globalnews.ca/
news/1794977/reginas-first-licensedstrip-club-proposal-denied/).
References
Brennan, S. and Taylor-Butts, A.
(2007). Sexual Assault in Canada
2004 and 2007. Canadian Centre for
Justice Statistics Profile Series, Catalogue no. 85F0033M—No. 19.
Jeffreys, S. (2008). Keeping women
down and out: The strip club boom
and the reinforcement of male dominance. Signs, 34(1), 151-173.
Macklin, A. (2003). Dancing across
borders: ‘Exotic dancers,’ trafficking,
and Canadian immigration policy. International Migration Review,
37(2), 464-500.
Maticka-Tyndale, E., Lewis, J., Clark, J.
P., Zubick, J., and Young, S. (2000).
Exotic dancing and health. Women &
Health, 31(1), 87-108.
Raphael, J. and Shapiro, D. L. (2004).
Violence in indoor and outdoor
prostitution venues. Violence Against
Women, 10(2), 126-139.
Statistics Canada (2011). Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile.
Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for
Justice Statistics. Catalogue no. 85224-X.
Page 3
How Can We Better Support Both Human and Animal
Victims of Violence?
by Jo-Anne Dusel, Provincial Coordinator
That’s what STOPS to Violence and
the Saskatchewan Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(Saskatchewan SPCA) are in the
process of finding out. The Saskatchewan SPCA is the agency that
works to ensure the humane treatment of animals. They do much
needed work in the areas of humane education, cruelty prevention
and intervention. STOPS to Violence
is a provincial agency that works
through partnerships and collaboration to educate and to facilitate
solutions to prevent interpersonal
violence.
Studies have shown that cruelty to
animals is frequently both an indicator and a predictor of interpersonal, family and community violence. Simply put, when animals are
abused, people are at risk. When
people are abused, animals are at
risk.
A 2000 study conducted by the
Ontario SPCA reports that:
 44% of women seeking refuge from violence in women’s shelters stated that their
partner
had
previously
abused or killed one or more
of their pets
 42% stated that their partner
had threatened to hurt or kill
a family pet
 16% confirmed that other
family members had either
abused or killed a family pet
 43% stated that concern
over their pets’ welfare had
prevented them from leaving
the abusive situation earlier.
In co-operation with PATHS, the
Ministry of Social Services, and the
Ministry of Justice, STOPS and the
SSPCA are gathering information
from a variety of Saskatchewan
agencies to find out what services
are currently available for pet owners who are experiencing abuse.
They will gather promising practices
from other jurisdictions, analyze
gaps and opportunities, and make
recommendations for next steps.
There is a movement toward including pets in safety planning for victims of abuse and homelessness.
There is growing recognition of the
therapeutic value of animals. Partnerships have been struck up in
other provinces that help provide
foster care for pets. For example,
The Ontario Veterinary Medical
Association has partnered with the
Ontario Association of Interval and
Transition Houses (OAITH), a sister
organization to PATHS, on a program which fosters pets for people
leaving abusive relationships.
In the United States, Saf-T Shelters
are offering shelter for women, their
children and their pets on-site. Each
shelter looks a little different. Some
have out buildings that serve as
kennels for pets. The women and
their children are able to experience
the emotional comfort they receive
from spending time with their pets.
Other shelters take it a step further
by providing “Pet Friendly” rooms
that have a dog run attached directly to the room. The family can have
the pet with them much as they
would at home, as long as the pet
remains in the room.
While having pets on-site in a shelter certainly creates a number of
additional challenges in terms of
health and safety, allergies, and
changes to existing infrastructure,
the rewards may just be worth it!
Page 4
International Women’s Day 2015
Please join the Provincial
Association of Transition
Houses and Services of
Saskatchewan (PATHS),
STOPS to Violence, and
the Saskatchewan Association of Sexual Assault
Services (SASS) for our
International Women’s
Day 2015 luncheon, Influ-
ential Women: Agents of
Change. We have part-
nered to host this event
with support from the
Government of Saskatchewan’s Status of Women
Office, Regina Transition
House, YWCA Isabel
Johnson Shelter, and
SOFIA House.
Each and every one of us
has the ability to influence change in our workplaces, families, and the
world around us. Our
guest speaker Sara Londono-Sulkin, from Maitri
Counselling and Coaching, will offer her personal and professional insights to improve our
understanding and
awareness of using our
own influence to be an
active part of the solution
to building healthy, safe
and vibrant workplaces
and communities.
When: Thursday March 5, 201512:10- 12:50 pm (doors open at
11:45 AM)
Where: St. Paul’s Cathedral Hall
(1861 McIntyre Street, Regina)
Visit this link to purchase tickets:
pathssk.org/events/iwd/
Other IWD events happening in Regina:
pathssk.org/2015/02/06/reginainternational-womens-day-events-march5th-9th-2015/
IWD events elsewhere in Saskatchewan:
pathssk.org/category/newsevents/
Page 5
Family Violence in Canada Statistics
by Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Member Programs and Services
Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2013 was released on
January 15th, 2015 (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 2015). According to this report, the Territories report the highest rate of police
-reported family violence. Among
the provinces, the police-reported
family violence rate was the highest
in Saskatchewan with 489.4 incidents per 100,000 population.
Manitoba was second of the provinces with 375.8, while Ontario was
the lowest with a rate of Ontario
166.9.
This report does not show a significant change from previous years’
reports, where Saskatchewan also
showed the highest rate of policereported family violence among the
provinces. As well as family violence, Saskatchewan also recorded
the highest rate of intimate partner
violence among the provinces in
2013, with a rate of 635.0 victims
per 100,000 population. Saskatchewan currently has the secondhighest rate of sexual assault
among the provinces— Manitoba is
first and the Territories have exponentially higher rates (Boyce, Cotter,
& Perreault, 2014).
The report from Statistics Canada
says, “There were just under 88,000
victims of family violence in Canada
in 2013, according to policereported data. This represented
more than one-quarter of all violent
crimes reported to police.
Just under half (48%) of all victims
of family violence were victimized
by a current or former spouse. For
another 17% of family violence victims, the accused was a parent,
while for 14% the accused was an
extended family member such as an
in-law, uncle or grandparent. A
further 11% of family violence victims were victimized by a sibling
and for 10% the accused was the
victim's own child.
As in previous years, a majority of
police-reported incidents of family
violence involved physical assault,
which included actions and behaviours such as pushing, slapping,
punching and face-to-face threats.
Police-reported data also reveal
that in 2013 almost 7 in 10 family
violence victims were female. In
comparison, females represented
46% of victims of violent crimes
that were not family-related. The
over-representation of female victims was most prominent in the
spousal violence category, where
nearly 8 in 10 victims were female” (Beaupré, 2015).
Following the release of the report,
PATHS spoke to the Regina-Leader
Post along with Betty Ann Pottruff
from the Saskatchewan Ministry of
Justice and Tara Busch, Victim Services Co-ordinator for Southeast
Regional Victim Services about
family violence in Saskatchewan.
Read the article here:
www.leaderpost.com/news/
Sask+highest+family+violence+rat
e+country/10733826/story.html
To read the Family Violence in Canada report in its entirety, visit the
Statistics Canada website here:
www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002x/2014001/article/14114-eng.htm
References
Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (2015). Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile, 2013. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Canadian
Centre for Justice Statistics. Catalogue no. 85-002-X.
Boyce, J., Cotter, A., and Perreault ,
S. (2014). Police-Reported Crime
Statistics in Canada, 2013. Ottawa,
ON: Statistics Canada. Canadian
Centre for Justice Statistics. Catalogue no. 85-002-X.
Page 6
The #50DollarsNot50Shades Campaign
by Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Member Programs and Services
PATHS is participating in the #50DollarsNot50Shades Campaign along which was started by the London Abused
Women’s Centre in Ontario. Other supporters include the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Stop Porn Culture,
Antipornography.org, and One Angry Girl Designs.
#50DollarsNot50Shades is a grassroots, women-led campaign that is encouraging people to boycott the film Fifty
Shades of Grey and instead donate $50 to a domestic violence agency or shelter in their area. The goal is to have
money that would have been spent on movie tickets, popcorn, and drinks go toward serving victims of abusive relationships like the one glamorized in this film. As the London Abused Women’s Centre has said, “Hollywood doesn’t
need your money— abused women do.”
The character of Christian Grey exhibits behaviour that is jealous, manipulative and verbally abusive. He stalks Ana and
uses tactics of coercive control. As the Campaign says, in real life, women in relationships like the one depicted in Fifty
Shades of Grey end up in women’s shelters. They can also end up dead. Control and abuse are not romance. We recommend you skip seeing Fifty Shades of Grey in the theatre and instead donate your money to women who are fleeing relationships like this one.
PATHS works to educate people about violence and abuse and getting involved in the #50DollarsNot50Shades Campaign is allowing us not only to gather donations for women in Saskatchewan who are fleeing abusive relationships
like that one portrayed in Fifty Shades of Grey but to have conversations with people about intimate partner violence.
Please consider donating $50 (or what you can) to PATHS or one of our nineteen member agencies.
Here is how you can donate:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Donate to PATHS online through Canada Helps at www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/provincial-association-oftransition-houses-and-services-of-saskatchewan-paths/
Send a cheque to PATHS at Suite 308, 2505 11th Avenue, Regina, SK S4P 0K6.
Contact PATHS at (306) 522-3515 to arrange to donate in person.
See our list of 19 member agencies on our website to donate to an agency in your area that is working to end
violence against women: pathssk.org/about-paths/paths-member-agencies/
You can also send donations for any of our member agencies to PATHS and we will direct it to the member
agency of your choosing.
Use the hashtags #50DollarsNot50Shades and #50ShadesisAbuse or #FiftyShadesisAbuse to spread awareness about
this Campaign.
Please check out the #50DollarsNot50Shades Campaign’s Facebook page to learn more about the Campaign and read
about why we feel that the glamorization of abusive relationships is harmful
(www.facebook.com/50dollarsnotfiftyshades).
Read PATHS’ blog posts on the Campaign here:
pathssk.org/2015/01/28/50dollarsnot50shades-campaign/
pathssk.org/2015/02/05/50dollarsnot50shades-media/
continued on page 7…
Page 7
...continued from page 6
For more on why we think the relationship portrayed in Fifty Shades is abusive, please see these sources:
 A post from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation: endsexualexploitation.org/fiftyshadesgrey/
 Research on Fifty Shades of Grey from the Journal of Women’s Health: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/
pubmed/23931257/
 A blog post that highlights fifty abusive moments (stalking, manipulation, control, and more!) in the book:
theramblingcurl.blogspot.ca/2014/02/fifty-abusive-moments-in-fifty-shades.html
PATHS has spoken to several media outlets about the #50DollarsNot50Shades Campaign including CBC TV and Radio
and CBC’s Afternoon Edition, Global Television, the John Gormley Show, CJME, CKRM, the Star-Phoenix, and Sun Media. PATHS was also mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter, the National Post, and Calgary Herald and the Campaign
has also been mentioned in People Magazine online, TIME Magazine online, and many others.
The Power of Social Media
by Crystal Giesbrecht, Director of Member Programs and Services
Writing about the power and potential of social media, Richard Branson
said “one of the best things about
social media is the way it can unite
people behind causes and be a force
for good. Its immediacy and accessibility has allowed it to contribute to
everything from the Arab Spring to
animal conservation.” This has certainly been true of a number of
awareness campaigns related to the
violence against women movement
over the past year.
Examples we have seen have been
#WhyILeft and #WhyIStayed (which
allowed survivors of violence to share
their stories and explain the complex
dynamics of violence relationships in
the wake of Ray Rice’s violent assault
on his then-fiance Janay (they have
since married),
#BeenRapedNeverReported (where
victims who had chosen not to report
their own past assaults to police
shared their reasons for doing so
following Jian Ghomeshi being accused
of
sexual
assault),
#IBelieveLucy and #IBelieveThem
(showing support for Lucy DeCoutere
and the anonymous women who
came forward to accuse Jian
Ghomeshi
of
assault),
and
#YesAllWomen (in response to a
mass murder by a 22 year old man in
California, who blamed women for
rejecting him in a video he posted
online before the killings).
With PATHS current involvement in
the
#50DollarsNot50ShadesCampaign,
we have been able to connect via
social media with advocates from the
violence against women movement
across North America. We have also
been able to spread the word about
the Campaign not only to our followers, but to people across the province and the country. We have also
been able to see reactions to the
Campaign, which is making a large
impact. Men and women across
North America are tweeting to encourage others to skip the film and
donate to a domestic violence shelter
instead, and others are sharing their
reactions about how the Campaign
changed the way they look at the
books and the soon-to-be-released
film.
Social media is more than hashtags
and liking posts. It is a way to engage in a larger community, share
ideas, have conversations, and connect. In a society where almost everyone is engaged online, our violence
prevention work must have a social
media component. PATHS engages
with other violence prevention organizations and shares news and
events on our Facebook and Twitter
pages. Please, like and follow us to
see the news stories that we are following and to share these stories
with people that you are connected
with.
www.facebook.com/pathssask
twitter.com/PATHS_SK
Page 8
The Provincial Association of Transition
Houses and Services of Saskatchewan
Member Agencies
Contact PATHS:
2505 11th Avenue
Regina, Saskatchewan
S4P 0K6
Phone: 306-522-3515
Fax: 306-522-0830
facebook.com/pathssask
twitter: @PATHS_SK
PATHS Staff:
Jo-Anne Dusel,
Provincial Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Crystal Giesbrecht,
Director of Member
Programs & Services
Email: [email protected]
www.pathssk.org
Battlefords Interval House
(306) 445-2742
Family Service Regina
(306) 757-6675
Hudson Bay Family and Support Centre
(306) 865-3064
Moose Jaw Transition House
(306) 693-6511
Saskatoon Interval House
(306) 244-0185
Shelwin House
(306) 783-7233
SIGN
(306) 783-9409
SOFIA House
(306) 565-2537
(306) 752-9464
Southwest Crisis Services
(306) 778-3692
PARTNERS Family Services
(306) 682-4135
Waskoosis Safe Shelter
(306) 236-5570
Piwapan Women’s Centre
(306) 425-3900
WISH Safe House
(306) 543-0493
Project Safe Haven
(306) 782-0676
YWCA Isabel Johnson Shelter
(306) 525-2141
Qu’Appelle Safe Haven Shelter
(306) 322-6881
YWCA Saskatoon
(306) 244-2844
North East Outreach and Support Services
Regina Transition House
(306) 757-2096