Passion’s transformation from love to hate is what makes murders by intimate partners so disturbing.
DAPHNE BRAMHAM, VANCOUVER SUN 12.28.2016
It’s a crime that one is immunized against by the dint of social, economic and cultural background — a fact brought sharply home earlier this month when Mohammed Shamji, a respected Toronto neurosurgeon, was arrested for the murder of his wife, Elana Fric-Shamji, a family physician. She died of strangulation and blunt-trauma force to the head and her body was dumped along the side of a road.
Friends, neighbours and co-workers were shocked. But at least one admitted that Fric-Shamji had confided that there were “issues” in their marriage and that she was seeking a divorce.
It doesn’t happen often. But it happens more often than most of us might realize. Every year, a dozen people are killed in British Columbia by a spouse, lover or ex-partner, according to a coroner’s report released last month.
Women are overwhelmingly the victims. Children are often collateral damage as secondary victims or as traumatized witnesses suddenly forced into someone else’s care.
The report was the result of a death panel review conducted earlier this year that found 100 intimate partner killings in B.C. between January 2010 and December 2015. Of those killed, 73 were victims and 27 were perpetrators who took their own lives or were killed by police.
Two-thirds of the 73 victims had been abused before the final, deadly assault. Yet only 10 had protection orders against the person who eventually murdered them.
Bear in mind that two in three domestic assaults in Canada go unreported. Even so, the numbers are tragically high.
Each year, 13,000 British Columbians ask police for help because a partner or spouse is physically or emotionally abusing them. Each year, more than 30,000 women and children are referred for counselling and outreach programs because of domestic violence. Another 18,000 women and children seek shelter at transition houses and safe houses.
Every year, an average of 232 women are admitted to hospital because of injuries inflicted on them by intimate partners.
Piling tragedy upon tragedy, the report suggests that these deaths are preventable. It sets out recommendations for more education, better case management and safety planning and better data collection.
A whole section is devoted to the court system. It points out the lack of coordination among the various branches. And, it notes that judges could use more education in the risks of intimate partner violence, including the risk of killings.
But rather than committing to making changes, the B.C. Justice Ministry has only agreed to review available educational materials and review the merits of early case management by a single judge in family and criminal cases.
Various other agencies and ministries have committed to increasing awareness and understanding of the risks of intimate partner violence over the coming year. The goal is to have more information and tools for women, their friends and family, so they are better able to identify an escalating risk.
Absent are recommendations for more services for women escaping abusive situations, even though transition homes and safe houses are so underfunded that every year they are forced to turn mothers and children away. Furthermore, B.C. has 889 communities but only 69 community-based services such as shelters or other programs for abused women.
More glaringly absent are recommendations aimed at perpetrators.
There are no recommendations for “public messaging” or more services aimed at men, who are the overwhelming majority of the perpetrators. There are no recommendations for courses or programs aimed at helping them better manage and express anger, frustration, jealousy or despair – the very feelings that this report identifies as the most frequently reported reasons for intimate partner violence.
There is also no recommendation for building a toolkit to help assess whether family members or friends are abusive or even provide some help in knowing what to say to them if they admit to it.
Obviously, more education about domestic violence aimed at reducing the stigma of reporting it is a step. So, too, is more education and better coordination within the judicial system and even data collection can’t hurt.
But, sadly, it seems there’s still a long way to go before reaching the report’s promise that these deaths are preventable.