Live like your life has value

I was researching some statistics on domestic violence and came upon the website from the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services.  It was a report from the chief Coroner entitled “Eighth Annual Report of Domestic Violence Death Review Committee.”

Here’s what I understood: 

1. From the title alone I understood that this committee has been reviewing these stats for eight years.  
2. Reading on I understood that this committee’s sole purpose is to review the stats and then make recommendations to “organizations and agencies that were in a position to effect implementation...”  
3. From a chart tracking this committee’s work since it’s inception I understood that deaths from domestic violence has gone up from 24 in 2003 to 36 in 2010.

Here’s what I didn’t understand:

1. How many more years of this reviewing is it going to take before it dawns on someone that while collecting and reviewing these statistics is interesting, solely making recommendations “to organizations and agencies that were in a position to effect implementation” isn’t working, the numbers aren’t going down!
2. Who are these “organizations and agencies” accountable to?
3. Is it fair to single them out as responsible? Perhaps not.

The thinking (our thinking, their thinking) that makes it acceptable for a woman in Afghanistan to have to choose between life imprisonment or marrying her rapist for freedom, is simply the extreme end of a continuum that has 22 women dead from Domestic Homicide in 2010 (out of 189 province wide).  It’s the continuum that says, women are not valued.

The reality is that women need to change this. If we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one else will.  This is the whole point of the Flight Imperative.  When you value yourself and live like your life has value, you will change the world.