Published in the Vancouver Sun on Friday 30 May 2008 under headline: What will it take to protect women?
I wrote this on the day an article was published about yet another bereaved family wanting to do something to protect women and their children from being murdered by their assailants, their 'controlling husbands,' their boyfriends, ex boyfriends, ex husbands, etc.. Karen Beck's family wants an inquest into her murder. Sunny Park's family is dead, her husband having killed Sunny and her children and then himself.
What triggered my fury, for it was a furious letter, was the final paragraph of the article which quoted an RCMP officer as saying that since the RCMP was supposed to enforce criminal law not civil, they didn't often enforce restraining orders. And it was ever thus!
if you're reading this blog, perhaps you have similar concerns to my own. Write to the newspapers when they run stories about women and children murdered by husbands/fathers/boyfriends. Please speak out for those whose voices have been silenced.
I wrote this on the day an article was published about yet another bereaved family wanting to do something to protect women and their children from being murdered by their assailants, their 'controlling husbands,' their boyfriends, ex boyfriends, ex husbands, etc.. Karen Beck's family wants an inquest into her murder. Sunny Park's family is dead, her husband having killed Sunny and her children and then himself.
What triggered my fury, for it was a furious letter, was the final paragraph of the article which quoted an RCMP officer as saying that since the RCMP was supposed to enforce criminal law not civil, they didn't often enforce restraining orders. And it was ever thus!
if you're reading this blog, perhaps you have similar concerns to my own. Write to the newspapers when they run stories about women and children murdered by husbands/fathers/boyfriends. Please speak out for those whose voices have been silenced.
A Sociologist in BC has done an in-depth study on this very problem if you're interested in reading more. One of her publications on the subject uses Karen Beck and Sunny Park as examples to highlight how the system works (or doesn't work) to protect women. Her name is Jill Adams, and can be reached at jill.adams@gov.bc.ca.
Posted by: Jan Milloy | 07 September 2009 at 07:31 PM