In this context, it is important to emphasize that there often is no safe place for a woman to go. First, many women do not have the economic means to support themselves and their children when fleeing a violent man. Men who use violence to control their female partners often also use economic deprivation and financial control as well.

Second, we know that separation from a violent man increases a woman’s vulnerability to femicide, which has been demonstrated over and over again. Indeed, it is well-documented by the Women We Honour Action Committee’s two reports (Crawford and Gartner, 1991; Crawford et al., 1997), as well as by Australian studies such as that by Alison Wallace (Wallace, 1984), and even by Statistics Canada as reported in its Juristat publications (Wilson and Daly, 1994).

Not all women have physical access to shelters. This is especially true for women with disabilities, Aboriginal women, and rural women. Many shelters are under-resourced, under-staffed, and have waiting lists. Even shelters cannot guarantee women’s lives, as the murder of the woman at a Québec women’s shelter in 1999 well illustrates (Pertiz, 1999). Witness protection programs are rarely used to assist battered women in escaping violent men, and the federal government’s commitment to expanding fathers’ rights in the context of custody and access will only increase women’s and children’s captivity. It is thus critical that the law adopt a concept of danger avoidance in framing the temporal limits of self-defence. As well, as should be clear from Recommendation #9, the duty to retreat would not apply to a battered woman who faced unavoidable danger such that self-defensive violence was necessary.

14. Jury Instructions

Another area in which the Justice consultation document made no reform recommendations is with respect to the judge’s instructions to the jury in cases of self-defence involving battered women on trial.

CAEFS supports the use of model jury instructions to assist trial judges in conveying the defence of self-defence to jurors. The issues regarding the availability of self-defence have become quite complex, and the common misperceptions and stereotypes that inform our thinking about male violence against women and children can only be countered if they are addressed squarely and clearly in the judge’s charge to the jury.