A former Statistics Canada researcher says facts and figures about domestic violence can’t be taken at face value.
The method of collecting data can skew the results, says Holly Johnson, who led Statistics Canada’s first national survey on violence against women in 1993.The agency's report on family violence collects data over the phone, excluding those who live in shelters or with partners who might monitor their calls, she says.
“We know that they undercount the most severe violence and we also know that the most severe violence happens against women,” Johnson says, adding that the context of violence might not be reported because only one person is interviewed.
“It’s possible that he was beating her and she defended herself and he said, ‘Oh yeah, yesterday she hit me,’ and he goes down as a victim of partner violence,” Johnson says.
Johnson, currently a professor in the department of criminology at the University of Ottawa, also does consulting to United Nations agencies for surveys on violence against women.
She says the reason why services for survivors of violence are tailored to women’s needs is because violence is still overwhelmingly a women’s issue.
“Yes, there are some men who are maybe terrorized by their wives but nothing compares them to the number of women," she says.“Yes, we have to be compassionate toward those men and yes, we have to provide the supports that they need. We have to intervene to stop that but to construct the problem as one that’s completely gender neutral is erroneous.”