Towards enhanced protection for victims of violence: NAWL’s recommendations on Bill 73 (Quebec)

NAWL submitted a brief to the Quebec’s National Assembly Committee on Institutions on Bill 73, An Act to counter the non-consensual sharing of intimate images and to improve civil protection and support for victims of violence.

The bill includes various measures to help victims of sexual or domestic violence:

1. Improving protections for victims of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, including creating a simplified process to quickly prevent or stop the sharing of an intimate image.
2. Strengthening the civil protection order, notably by making it easier to obtain for victims of family, domestic or sexual violence.
3. Improving the civil justice system, in particular by allowing measures to support victims and by prohibiting the use of certain myths and stereotypes in judgments involving sexual or domestic violence.

NAWL supports this bill, and in our brief, we propose a few key measures to improve it. Particularly, we recommend broadening access to a court order preventing the distribution of an intimate image. We also recommend adding another myth to the list of those excluded from judicial reasoning: the idea that victims denounce sexual or domestic violence to influence their child, or to gain an advantage in family litigation.

Read the full brief (in French only).