Updates

February 19, 2013
JFG says RCMP Commissioner's reported response to allegations of police abuse of girls and women reveals old boys club and wall of sexism
Read Press Release
Read HRW Press Release
Read Human Rights Watch Report

September 2012
Teen girls prompt United Nations Child Rights Committee to question Canada about climate change
Read press release

August 2012
Read JFG Submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
Read the submission

Read the blogs of JFG&
David Suzuki Foundation Interns!
Zoe and Rekha

May 2012
Native Women's Association of Canada & Justice for Girls release report documenting the inter-generational impacts of residential school on criminalized Aboriginal women and girls
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Read Report

JFG Troubled by Expanded Breach of Aboriginal Women & Girls' Human Rights
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Inter-American Commission on Human Rights-- Hearing on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Girls and Women in BC
Watch the hearing

September 2011
JFG Demands Housing for Homeless Girls
Read Letter to Editor

Justice for Girls is a non-profit organization that promotes freedom from violence, social justice and equality for teenage girls who live in poverty.

Canadian girls face disturbingly high rates of violence. Male violence is a daily reality for homeless young women. On the street young women are subjected to constant verbal, physical and sexual violence. Homeless girls face every kind of physical and verbal assault. Day to day they are touched, poked, prodded, fondled, forcibly kissed, spat on, pelted with objects (such as cigarette butts), grabbed, pushed, punched, and kicked. Girls who are sexually abused through prostitution are most vulnerable to all forms of violence including murder. Men who abuse girls on the street-"johns", passers-by, boyfriends, police, bar patrons- rarely, if ever face consequences for their attacks on homeless teenage girls.

As a result of racist child welfare practices and colonial destruction of Indigenous communities, Indigenous girls make up a large percentage of teenage girls in poverty including homeless girls. Indigenous girls are subjected to extreme rates of violence and constitute a shocking number of murder and suicide victims in British Columbia. Justice for Girls has observed that men who commit the most serious sexual violence against multiple teenage girls very often choose Indigenous girls as their targets. We understand these to be hate motivated acts of sexual violence.

Whether it is past sexual abuse at home or in government care, rape by a current boyfriend, or repeated sexual exploitation and abuse by "johns", the effects of sexual violence against girls are severe and cummulative. In addition to physical injuries, girls experience chronic anxiety, panic attacks, depression, emotional numbness, flash-backs, sleep and eating disturbances, gastro-intestinal disorders, and more. In order to cope, young women sometimes use drugs, live "on the run," harm and mutilate their own bodies, act out anger on other girls, or attempt or commit suicide.

Low-income and homeless teenage girls need the safety of housing and services that are for girls only. Given the level of male violence that young women face and their marginalization through poverty, systemic racism, and other forms of oppression, programs and services for girls must respond to the compounding effects of multiple forms of oppression and repeated male violence.

JFG Advocate,Asia Czapska, Visitor at the Liu Institute for Global Studies & Center for Women Studies and Gender Relations at the University of BC
Read about it

Chatelaine Magazine Features Profile on JFG Co-Founder
Annabel Webb
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Justice for Girls Co-founder Annabel Webb Social Justice Visitor at UBC Law

JFG Continues Call for Inquiry into Justice System's Response to Violence Against Aboriginal Girls
Read Letter

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