INTRODUCTION

Family violence is a pressing issue in Canadian society. The literature often uses the terms intimate partner violence (IPV), domestic violence (DV), and family violence (FV) interchangeably. In this book we use family violence, as this is the terminology that the most recent amendment of the Canadian Divorce Act uses (Government of Canada, 2023).

Statistics Canada (2022c) shows that police reports about criminal code offences involving the context of family violence have increased to 127,082 victims in 2021, which has reached its highest point since 2007. However, as FV is an underreported crime (Government of Canada, 2022b; Statistics Canada, 2022a), the actual rates might be higher than documented. Most literature on FV focuses on the experience of women, with little attention being paid to children (Khemthong & Chutiphongdech, 2021). This is a serious omission, considering how children exposed to FV are more likely to become perpetrators or victims of FV in adulthood (Etherington & Baker, 2016; Fulu et al., 2017; WHO, 2022). Unfortunately, information about the impact of FV on children does not exist beyond a broad look at the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022).^[1] Because children exposed to FV are impacted in specific ways, their experiences warrant their own investigative category. Our research contributes to this category of experience.

While there is literature on services for women and families, there is little information about services for children impacted by FV. This lack of specific information about the impact of FV on children and effective interventions for them is problematic, as the rate of FV against children and youth has increased by 25% since 2009 (Statistics Canada, 2022c). It should be noted that this statistic is based on limited data reported to the police under the Criminal Code offenses and does not capture the FV as broadly defined in Canada’s federal Divorce Act. The information presented by the Government of Canada (2021, 2022a) and Statistics Canada (2022c) also does not include factors such as race, gender, and immigration status. This is problematic when considering Canada’s current demographic trends. In 2036, children with an immigrant background will represent between 39% and 49% of the total Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2017). Furthermore, it is predicted that in 2041, two in five Canadians will be racialized (Statistics Canada, 2022b). Hence there is an urgent need to expand the limited body of knowledge on racialized immigrant children impacted by FV.

Canada has been a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) (“UNCRC”) for more than three decades (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2021). Article 19 of the Convention highlights how state parties are expected to take appropriate action to protect children from violence and neglect, with measures including support programs for children and, when relevant, judicial involvement (United Nations, 1990). Furthermore, Article 9 of the Convention highlights how children have the right to participate in legal proceedings relating to their abuse and neglect and have their voice regarding the situation heard (United Nations, 1990). The lack of information about children, including racialized immigrant children, exposed to FV is tantamount to Canada’s failure to respect children’s rights.

Given the urgency of the need to gather knowledge on the impact of FV on racialized immigrant children, we present real-life case studies of racialized immigrant young adults who experienced FV in their childhood. With these case studies, we hope to draw attention to the compounded impact of FV and highlight how FV is often aggravated by systemic violence in the case of racialized immigrant children. We hope the case studies facilitate the training of professionals working with racialized immigrant children who have experienced FV.