The Ontario Rural Woman Abuse Study (ORWAS), final report

1. INTRODUCTION

Women living with violence and abuse -- in urban or rural[1] areas -- often experience and internalise violence and its effects in similar ways.  There are differences, however, in the external circumstances of women living in rural areas (and small towns) which can affect their ability to find safety.  Historically, responses to the issue of woman abuse have been based primarily on the experiences of urban residents.

In the first federal government Family Violence Initiative (1990-1994), a commitment was made to Treasury Board by the Department of Justice Canada to undertake research in the area of domestic violence in rural areas.  In 1996, a literature review identified the dearth of materials written about rural women and familial violence (Brookbank, 1996).  When the second phase of the Initiative was renewed in 1996, the Research and Statistics Division of the Department of Justice Canada made a further commitment to undertake a more detailed research project.  In 1997, the literature review was updated and a project backgrounder was prepared which identified research gaps, questions, directions and the need for further in-depth research in this area (Biesenthal and Sproule, 1998).  With departmental family violence funding, support from the Senior Advisor of Gender Equality, and some interdepartmental financial support from Health Canada, a more in-depth study was developed on rural women and their experience with family violence.  The result was ORWAS.

ORWAS is a joint initiative of CAPRO (Community Abuse Program of Rural Ontario), a community-based, provincially funded project of the Ontario Farm Women’s Network and the Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario, and the Department of Justice Canada.  ORWAS was initiated in the late fall of 1997.  The purpose of the project was twofold:  First, to obtain a better understanding of the unique challenges confronting rural women experiencing violence; and second, to identify the most appropriate supports and interventions that were effective for rural women living with abuse, with the hope to facilitate constructive community discussion or action around the issue.

Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies were employed to provide a thorough and sound analysis.  A quantitative analysis of Statistics Canada’s 1993 Violence Against Women Survey was undertaken to fill the void in statistical information on violence against women in rural Canada (Levett and Johnson, 1998).  Community-based qualitative methods were used to provide a more local “deep and narrow” understanding of the issue that a statistical analysis could not capture.  Qualitative methods were used to promote a sense of shared ownership of the project whereby the researchers and the participants would become co-participants and would potentially become mobilised into action or work to promote change within their communities (Joyappa and Martin, 1996).  The methodology developed for ORWAS was further replicated in two rural sites in British Columbia (Jiwani, Moore and Kachuk, 1998).  Research reports were completed for each of the six rural communities that took part in the study:  Vermilion Bay (Biesenthal and Podovinnikoff, 1998); Cochrane (Kolmeitz-Warman, 1998); Espanola (Nelder, 1998); Glengarry, Stormont and Dundas (Roosendaal, 1998); Grey Bruce Counties (Mann, 1998); and, Oxford County (Golton, 1998).  In addition to these reports, an evaluation of the ORWAS project was completed (Nelder and Snelling, In Press)

[1]  There is a large debate within the literature pertaining to the definition of rural.  For the purposes of this research, the Statistics Canada definition of “not urban” was used.  Accordingly, rural territories are outside of urban areas, urban areas having a population of 1,000 or more and a population density of more than 400 persons per square kilometre.