Known unknowns
A lack of public transportation might be inconvenient for some, but for vulnerable women attempting to escape an abuser, it can be suffocating.
In November 2017, Saskatoon-West MP Sheri Benson told the house that “the situation would lead to a new Highway of Tears,” she said, referring to a stretch of Highway 16 in B.C. where between 16 and 40 women have been murdered.
Having heard the stories of women travelling Saskatchewan highways, Dusel, executive director of PATHS, thinks that’s a fair comparison.
“It’s really hard to know what a safe ride is, so even if you’re doing that checking around online, that’s not really a guarantee,” Dusel said.
The Natives Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has echoed that concern.
“The lack of safe transportation in and out of communities creates more vulnerability for Indigenous women, girls, and gender-diverse people by encouraging travelers to resort to less safe means of transportation such as hitchhiking or walking unsafe highways. By virtue of this significant access barrier, it will exacerbate the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls,” the association said in a written statement.
The Interim Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has identified “the need for more frequent and accessible transportation services to be made available to Indigenous women.”
Because the NWAC has been involved in talks with the federal working group, the organization declined comment on ongoing transportation issues in Saskatchewan.
According to data compiled from 582 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls by NWAC in 2010, the percentage of Aboriginal women and girls who were murdered by strangers in Saskatchewan was more than double the national percentage. Of the 61 cases in Saskatchewan, 44 per cent involved strangers. And the rate of murders that occurred on streets, roads, and highways in Saskatchewan is higher than the national average.
It is difficult to know exactly what effect the loss of public transportation has had on the health and safety of Indigenous women and girls, but front-line workers and managers of women’s shelters across the province have measured the direct impact of the loss of the STC on vulnerable women across the province.
When PATHS surveyed its member agencies last July it heard that 70 per cent of staff had heard directly from women who had hitchhiked to get to a women’s shelter or service centre.
Accessibility in rural and remote regions has always been an issue, but more women trying to escape intimate partner violence are now unable to access shelters and social services. Either they can’t arrange for transportation, or they take their chances on the road.
“It’s very common for them to hitchhike for some part of the journey,” Dusel said. “A lot of people have been left in the lurch.”
And, she has heard some chilling anecdotes.
Women are sometimes pressured for payment beyond cash for gas, for example. In one reported instance, a client was hitchhiking in order to visit her child, who was in someone else’s care.
“Along the way, the driver wanted sexual services as part of payment. She refused. He assaulted her, threw her out of the car and left her on the side of the road. So those are the sorts of situations that individuals are forced into because of a lack of a public transportation service,” Dusel said.
This survey was conducted in July of 2018, before the loss of Greyhound, but after the loss of STC.
“A lot of people have been left in the lurch.”
– Jo-Anne Dusel
Women’s shelter staff members have told PATHS that women have contacted them seeking help and laying out plans to travel to the city the following day.
“They’ll say, ‘I’m coming, hold a room for me,’” Dusel said. And then they won’t show up.
Dusel said this has left staff wondering if these women were unable to get transportation, simply stayed in their abusive situation, or experienced danger while travelling.
The Saskatchewan arm of a research network dubbed Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse (RESOLVE), that co-ordinates and supports research aimed at ending violence, especially violence involving girls and women, released a report in 2018.
After five years of collaborative research across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, RESOLVE found that transportation is a big barrier for women escaping intimate partner violence. Research by the group shows that incidents of intimate partner and family violence are disproportionately more common in rural and remote communities, especially in the North.
Saskatchewan is, in many ways, an outlier. According to a Statistics Canada report, Saskatchewan has the highest rate of intimate partner violence among provinces in Canada. “That is consistent over many years,” Dusel said.
Thirty-three per cent of the Saskatchewan population lives in rural areas, and statistically, if you live in a rural or remote area, you are more likely to experience intimate partner violence and intimate partner homicide.
Dusel said she believes that this is partly due to geographic isolation, but also partly to culture.
Many rural farming communities in Saskatchewan are very traditional and have strong family values. “There’s a lot of pressure to keep the family together,” Dusel said.
Again, Statistics Canada has found that all crime rates in rural areas are higher than those in urban areas, but they are especially higher when it comes to intimate partner violence.
Those risk factors are compounded if you are Indigenous.
In Saskatchewan, 62 per cent of the Indigneous population lives in rural and remote areas and Indigenous women are more likely to experience intimate partner and family violence than non-Indigenous women.
Indigenous women also face a number of extra barriers to personal empowerment due to colonization, racism, and disruption of family systems due to residential school abuse, according to the RESOLVE report.
On top of that, if these women are not living in a city, there is a notable lack of nearby services.
For them, the distance to the nearest resource is over three times further than for those living in urban centres. It’s also common for women not to have driver’s licenses in rural and remote areas, RESOLVE found.
“In an urban area, most women do. But when you think of more traditional family values and gender roles that are common in rural Saskatchewan, if there’s only one vehicle per household, it’s more likely that the man drives that vehicle,” Dusel said.
The options for a woman facing intimate partner violence in an isolated area, or on a farm, are simply more limited. She could call the RCMP, but it could take up to three hours for them to show up. In fact, Dusel says member agencies report that there has been an increase in clients relying on the RCMP for rides. Arranging a ride from others can put ride-givers at risk, as well, since the time of separation from an abusive partner statistically is the most dangerous, Dusel said.
“There is no next-door neighbour to hear a fight and call the police on her behalf, she can’t run out the door and run to somebody’s house for safety. There’s no one to talk to – no one to notice,” Dusel said.
The loss of the STC didn’t create these social problems, nor their root causes, but it did exacerbate the social costs.