Legislation provides access to a partner’s history of violence, support services
Manitobans who find themselves with a potentially abusive partner now have a way to find out about that person’s documented history of violence thanks to the launch of Clare’s Law.
The Disclosure to Protect Against Intimate Partner Violence Act was passed by the provincial government in 2022 and finally came into effect March 1.
“Clare’s Law is critical in Manitoba, where we have the second highest rate of intimate partner violence and family violence across Canadian provinces,” said Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, minister responsible for women and gender equity. “This made-in-Manitoba approach centres survivors, connecting people to information but also to community-based and trauma-informed supports and services to protect and empower Manitoban families.”
Clare’s Law is named after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her former partner in England in 2009. After her death, her family learned her killer had a lengthy history of violence against women. They campaigned to create a legal process that allows police to warn potential victims of intimate partner violence, or their families, about a partner’s documented violent past.
Versions of Clare’s Law have since been adopted in the United Kingdom and in some Canadian provinces.
Manitoba is the first Canadian jurisdiction to broaden the disclosure protocol to include both family and sexual violence, and is also the first jurisdiction in the world to, as a stated goal in the legislation, include connections for the applicant to the various supports and resources available to them as someone at risk of intimate partner violence.
“Manitoba’s unique approach to Clare’s Law will make a difference in keeping Manitobans and their families safe, combining access to crucial information, safety planning, and community-based supports,” said Justice Minister Matt Wiebe.
Ang Braun, executive director of Genesis House, which provides safe haven for the victims of domestic violence in Southern Manitoba, hailed the launch of Clare’s Law as a positive step forward.
“What Claire’s Law does is it allows, legitimately, a pathway for people to find out whether the person they’re dating or in a relationship with has a prior history of domestic violence or gender-based violence or sexual violence,” she said, noting having that information can help people make informed and safer choices.
Many women find themselves in a situation where red flags are telling them something might be wrong, but they’re perhaps uncertain how concerned they should truly be about their safety.
“Knowing how domestic violence or gender-based violence works is that it often doesn’t start with the physical,” Braun pointed out. “It can start with gaslighting, with emotional abuse or financial abuse, or really just very controlling behaviour.
“A lot of times if this is your second relationship or third relationship and you’re bringing children into this relationship, you can see how people might say, ‘You know what, I’m not great with this controlling behaviour, but I might be able to tolerate it … but what if there’s more?’
“And sometimes you can be in a relationship where there’s violence or abuse, but it’s not all the time, so you can become complacent: ‘It was my fault’ or ‘It was just this one time.’
“But when you hear a third party, if you go through this process [for a Clare’s Law application] and that third party tells you there’s been three other protection orders taken out against this person, I think that really validates that, oh my goodness, I have been minimizing this. Because that’s one of the big things that happens is people often minimize the violence or abuse they’re experiencing. But when you get that validation, I think it could prompt a person to say, ‘Hey, I’m out.’”
Braun said the shelter is looking forward to receiving training to aid people in applying for the program, which the province says will initially will be offered out of offices in Winnipeg and virtually before and eventually expanding to include satellite locations across the province.
“This cannot just be a Winnipeg-based program,” Braun stressed. “They’ve talked about satellite sites, so I imagine that shelters and women’s resource centers will become those satellite sites … I would strongly advocate for those of us in the rural areas, the agencies that are already familiar with and equipped in dealing with gender-based violence, that it would make sense that we would be the satellites for helping people find out more about this and make their applications.”
Applications for Clare’s Law are available at gov.mb.ca.
