Congratulations to UNPAC for your 46 workshops on the Manitoba Budget. Great information to know.

Speaking of statistics, a CBC news article this morning reports a huge discrepancy between the city's numbers of sexual assaults and that of Stats Canada, a ten-fold plus difference! The number of sexual assaults in CrimeStat Winnipeg to date in 2008 is listed at 87 while the Stats Canada figure for Manitoba sexual assautls for 2007 was 1248, most of which were committed in Winnipeg. The reason provided is that at this point in time, the city's stats are limited to stranger assaults. Shouldn't we all who are concerned about security, peace and social justice, respond to the issue of listing the violence against women perpetrated on them by known individuals? Considering that we are fast approaching November, month for the prevention of violence against women, culminating on December 6 with the commemoration of the Montreal massacre, this is a very timely topic.

One argument presented against including the total reported incidents of sexual assaults is that it would frighten people....!!! It is estimated that 90% of the assaults being perpetrated against women by family members/ former partnwers/ "friends"/ acquaintances do not get reported at all so to report the ones that are brought forth would allegedly skew the reality....!!!!

I would argue then, in terms of homicides (femicide, really) do they extricate the cases involving a partner or former partner/family member killings from the Winnipeg statistics as well? Are they currently included or not in the city's statistics? Isn't that frightening as well? In my opinion, it is very paternalistic to make this decision unilaterally.... What is the bottom line here? Is it too great of an obstacle for Sam Katz's tourist industry to our fair city?

What about our Stolen Sisters? More than 500 unsolved "disappearances" across Canada. I agree that it is terribly frightening. But don't we have the right to know this information in order to better protect ourselves, our sisters, our children, our cousins, mothers, our friends and neighbours- in order to begin addressing this issue with the seriousness it deserves!

FYI and consideration,

Gisele Saurette Roch, Co-chair
Grassroots Women MB
-----Original Message-----
From: Jennifer deGroot [mailto:project@unpac.ca]

Subject: demographic information from our gender budget project

Hi everyone,

I thought you might be interested in these stats which were included in the final report for our project to Status of Women:

The nearly 500 women who attended one of our 46 budget workshops held across the province. These women represented a wide range of backgrounds. Close to 75% of participants filled out a informal demographics questionnaire which collected some of this information
including:
o Age: 3% of women who filled out the survey identified as teenagers,
36% as young women, 42% as being in their middle years and 18% as seniors.
o Income: 34% of participants identified as low-income, 54% as
average income and 12% as high income
o Children: Approximately 30% of participants had no children or
dependants while 70% did.
o Race: Two-thirds of participants identified as white, 17% as
Aboriginal, Métis or Inuit, 12% as people of colour and 4% as other.
o Geography: 45% of participants were from Winnipeg while the rest
were from throughout rural and Northern Manitoba.
o Language: 80% of participants were comfortable speaking English or
English and another language while the others preferred French, Cree, Ojibway or another language.
o Ability: Unfortunately we did not keep track of statistics on
ability. We did organize two workshops specifically for women living with disabilities.