The services of a major interpreter project for victims of domestic violence will no longer be reimbursed from March 31. While needs are growing, the government is slow to decide on the future of this network of banks of interpreters which serve 36 help and accommodation centers in eight regions of Quebec.
The grant request has already been on the desk of the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) for several months, but “no solution is on the table,” says Julie St-Pierre-Gaudreault . She is coordinator of the “Accessibility to interpreting services for immigrant, refugee and precarious status women” (ASIFI) project, started in 2021.
This initiative will end on March 31 after having exhausted its funds and will therefore be “in major service disruption,” she said. No invoices will be refunded and no interpreters will be trained. Even if their renewal file can still be analyzed in the next two weeks, the coordinator “simply does not see how approval could arrive on time”.
In its latest budget, Quebec announced the addition of $10 million to support immigrants, after a freeze was decreed last year. The Consultation Table of Organizations Serving Refugees and Immigrants (TCRI), which employs Mme St-Pierre-Gaudreault, breathed a certain sigh of relief, she said.
But for ASIFI, it’s still “radio silence”, she laments. “The MIFI considered it to be a pilot project,” she adds, but “our understanding was always that it could be renewed if it worked well.”
The needs have been “really demonstrated”, she continues. Immigrant women are over-represented in shelters for victims of domestic violence, and those with precarious status are on the rise, such as The duty documented it in recent months. In Montreal, they form the majority, but the phenomenon is observed everywhere, including in a smaller city like Rimouski, where a house has received two women without status in recent years.
The women who use these services are in very difficult situations, often at the worst time of their lives: “It’s super important to use an interpreter in situations of domestic violence. […] You have to be able to reflect the real situation, the emotions, the traumatic elements. » Immigrant women, with or without a precarious status, find themselves in great isolation because of domestic violence and coercive control, especially if they speak neither French nor English.
In total, 13 banks of interpreters are collaborating on this project with key people and they have offered more than 2,400 hours of interpreting since 2021. In addition to reimbursing costs “which can increase quite quickly,” says this TCRI representative. , the project also made it possible to train 200 interpreters in the specific challenges of domestic violence. This element is crucial, to avoid “missteps” and offer a “safe service”, she explains.
The three major associations of shelters in Quebec have joined forces with the project. It also results from the Government Action Plan on Domestic Violence 2018-2023 to “ensure that immigrant women and girls and those from ethnocultural minorities have tools adapted to their realities”. The Rebâtir report, a flagship document in terms of support for victims, also noted in 2020 that accessibility to these services “poses a problem”, both from the point of view of delays and costs. The recommendation was also to “evaluate the services of translators and interpreters in order to ensure their neutrality and the quality of their training”.