During IANSA’s Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence, Project Ploughshares held a public screening of Canadian documentary filmmaker Shelley Saywell’s Devil Bargain: A Journey into the Small Arms Trade. 

In Devil’s Bargain, Saywell tracks the global small arms trade.  Through the film, she illustrates the need for an international treaty to end the illegal flow of small arms, which fuels war and results in massive death and destruction.   

Based in Toronto, Shelley Saywell established Bashari Film Productions Inc. in 1987, to produce documentary films that focus on issues of human rights.  Through her films, she hopes to provide people with a perspective they might not otherwise receive, introducing the world to individuals both suffering from human rights violations and causing them. 

Saywell, who has been honored with UNESCO’s Gandhi Silver Medal for Promoting the Culture of Peace in 1997 and an Emmy in 2001 for Outstanding Investigative Journalism, was kind enough to participate in an interview with me, the questions and answers of which are below.

DEVILS BARGAIN

In your film, Devil’s Bargain, you focus for some time on violence (and rape) against women committed by soldiers in war-torn countries.  Do you think that the access these soldiers have to firearms empowers them to commit such crimes? 

Absolutely I do.   In 1995 I made a film about rape as a weapon of war focusing on rape in the Balkans, and small arms and light weapons were a major contributor to that terror campaign.    Women have no hope against armed men who have become inured to the violence and use the gun as a symbol of power and masculinity.  I asked why rape had become so prevalent in war and “soft conflict” zones, and the answer was “rape inflicts maximum pain”, and therefore is the most powerful attack mechanism – with the least amount of risk to the perpetrator.   The proliferation of guns, easy for any kid to use, have made this a daily occurrence in places like the Congo – where many women have been raped multiple times, Somalia, Darfur, and too many other places.

Taking it back to a domestic context (and one which applies to non-war torn countries), do you think that individuals that are abusive and that have access to guns are empowered by their firearms, and thus more abusive?

I believe that.  I am making a film about domestic violence in the immigrant South Asian/Arab community here.  In two of the stories I’m following the father/brother killed with a gun.  In one case, the gun he used was being “stored for a friend”, in another – a cabbie, shot both of his daughters multiple times.  Before that, he’d threatened them and their mother, shot out windows and car tires.  He might still have killed them without the gun, but the link of its possession to his violence and anger can’t be overlooked.  He felt powerless in our society, and the gun was a symbol of power to him according to his wife.

I made another film years ago called Angry Girls about girls and violence in Toronto.  I was shocked to learn that the majority of the teenage girls I was following had witnessed or experienced the death of a friend or family member by gun violence.   We are talking about the life of high school girls in many poorer neighbourhoods in Toronto.  

I’ve had a lot of individuals comment to me that for the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign to focus solely on women is unfair and biased.  Statistically, men make up the majority of perpetrators in cases of domestic abuse.  In addition, they also own the majority of firearms.  When you were filming Devil’s Bargain, did you come across many women involved in the illicit trade of small arms (because there were none featured in the film)?  If so, what were their roles?

There were no women involved in the illicit trafficking of weapons that I found.  That isn’t a scientific survey – but there were no female arms dealers that came across our radar, and we spent a year researching and reading reports before we began filming.   I think stats would bear out that this is predominantly a male game.  There were women involved in sales and PR for the big gun shows and “legal” trade, though much fewer than men.

Do you think the benefits of a screening process such as the one in Canada’s Firearms Act outweighs whatever the administrative/enforcement costs may be?

Yes.  When we measure COST we have to remember what these weapons do, in terms of individual terror and social instability.  When I grew up we never heard of gun violence in Toronto – that was New York or Detroit or somewhere else.  Now guns are becoming endemic.  We need to spend whatever it costs to try to control and register legal guns – so that the illicit trafficking can be monitored and stemmed.

Individuals who legally own their firearms and use them for sportsmanship purposes complain that it’s unfair to hold law-abiding citizens responsible for the protection of others through the Firearms Act and the registry.  How would you address this?

If you own a firearm legally, then you should appreciate and support the necessity of having strict controls.   I never understand the attitudes – especially of Americans with their Second Amendment rights – who believe binding gun laws and international treaties will somehow impinge on their rights.    All you have to do is look at a failed state like Somalia, where the law IS the gun, to know what the worst case alternative is.   The Registry is essential.

I had a chance to sit down with Maribel Gonzales, my counterpart at Project Ploughshares, to ask her about her work in small arms and peacebuilding.  In the interview, Maribel talks about the correlation between small arms and domestic violence and explains how Canada’s Firearms Act has effectively harmonized gun control and domestic violence laws in the country.  In addition, she talks about attempts to eliminate the registration of unrestricted rifles and shotguns, which would dismantle these harmonized laws.

It’s 9:30am on Saturday, and Maribel and I are supposed to meet at the office at noon to finish up the exhibit we are taking with us to the Canadian Conference on the Prevention of Domestic Violence that begins tomorrow in London, Ontario.  The conference, organized by the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children, will have about 450 attendees.  We are the only organization allowed an exhibit at the conference and it will be used to launch the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign, so we need to make sure it’s good.  We have been so chaotically busy since my arrival, however, that we’re both already at our desks, catching up on all of the things we need to get done individually, before working on the exhibit.

On Monday and Tuesday, we were in Ottawa, as Maribel needed to attend Peacebuild’s Small Arms Working Group annual general meeting.  Peacebuild is a coalition of Canadian peacebuilding organizations, and because they are playing an active role in the Disarming Domestic Violence campaign, I attended part of the day-long meeting to meet Peacebuild stakeholders and staff.  I was able to touch base with their communication’s director, and I’m hoping he will begin including more information on the issue of gun control and domestic violence on the organization’s website.

In addition to the time I spent at Peacebuild, I also met with organizations in Ottawa that have a vested interest in women’s rights.  One of the individuals I met with was Erin Williams, Executive Director of the Ottawa Coalition to End Domestic Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW).  Although I was a bit uneasy about meeting with someone on my own so soon, by the end of the meeting Erin had agreed that her organization would endorse the campaign, post information about it on their website, help with compiling data on the efficiency of harmonic gun control and domestic violence laws, and reach out to constituents in order to involve them in letter writing and other forms of advocacy.

Luckily, Maribel allowed me a bit of time on Monday to tour Parliament.  Since my arrival, I have been asking an obnoxious amount of questions in an attempt to better understand Canada’s government, so the tour was a good way to get me to stop.  In addition, we went to dinner with Maribel’s friend, who also happens to be a government staffer, which provided me another good opportunity to get my questions answered.

Centre Block

The Centre Block building in Ottawa is where both the House of Commons and Senate chambers of Parliment would debate gun control legislation, if brought forth for debate.

Women are People Too!

“Women are People Too” is a monument found outside of the Centre Block building in Ottawa.  It was constructed in honor of the women who fought for the right to hold office in Parliment, and is a good reminder that women have equal rights and should be protected by the law.

On Tuesday, Maribel and I attended a general meeting of the Ad-Hoc Coalition for Women’s Equality and Human Rights at the suggestion of Aalya Ahmed, Co-Coordinator of the Coalition.  It was a great experience, sitting in on a meeting where so much enthusiasm exists for women’s rights.  All of the organizations at the meeting, including the national chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action (FAFIA), seemed interested in learning more about the campaign, and Maribel and I will be following up with them after the conference in London.

Although the meetings I have had have been very productive and the support garnered thus far has been tremendous, what has been a bit disconcerting to me over the past two weeks is the general lack of knowledge surrounding Canada’s Firearms Act and the protections it includes for women and children.  With some of the groups I have been in contact with, I have had to spend time explaining where in the Firearms Act protections against domestic violence are included, and what they are.  Additionally, I have discovered that some organizations are unaware of the proposals currently before Parliament that would eliminate the registration requirements of unrestricted rifles and shotguns (C-391 in the House of Commons and S-5 in the Senate).  As a result, it has become clear that during the duration of my time in Ontario, I will need to focus some of my time illustrating the importance of following the actions of, and proposals before, Parliament.  In order to successfully protect women from domestic violence by firearms, those with a vested interest need to be aware of what laws are in place, and what proposals have been made to alter the legislation, in order to successfully lobby on behalf of those that they are trying to protect.

The first few days of my fellowship with Project Ploughshares have been a whirlwind of meeting new people, reading up on gun control legislation in Canada, and exploring my new surroundings.  The Ploughshares office is located in an old Seagram’s distillery and needless to say, it’s amazing.  The building used to be a museum, and much of the distillery is still intact.  Our organization is among good company, sharing the building with an international governance think tank and a non-profit economic development organization.  

Project Ploughshares

Project Ploughshares office location, housed in an old Seagram’s distillery.

Project Ploughshares has a staff of about ten people, and as an NGO their main area of focus is on peace, small arms, and disarmament.  The topic of domestic violence and its correlation with gun control is not one which Ploughshares has broached before, and therefore I will be spending a lot of my time turning to experts in the field of domestic violence throughout Canada in order to better understand the direct effect gun control policies have on domestic violence.   Canada is one of only a few countries that already has in place harmonic gun control and domestic violence laws.  In 1995, the Firearms Act was passed, requiring that owners of guns hold both a license and proof of registration for their firearms.   Before being granted a license, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Firearms Program may choose to contact references, spouses, or ex-spouses ( required information on the application) in order to determine whether there are any safety concerns in granting a particular individual a license.   Opponents question why both a license and registration are needed, arguing that  a lack of statistical evidence exists illustrating that current policy reduces violence; many assert that the money used to cover administrative costs for the program should instead be used to increase the number of RCMP.  Proponents, on the other hand, explain that current legislation should be looked at in the same sense as owning a car; owners of automobiles must register their car after purchasing it, and they must carry a valid license to operate it.  If an individual has violations on their record, restrictions may be placed on their license and thus, their ability to drive.  The Firearms Act operates under the same concept in that if safety concerns surface through the application process, the individual under review will be looked at more closely by the RCMP and may be denied a license.  One of my tasks during my time here will be to meet with organizations with a vested interest in preventing domestic violence in order to get them involved in illustrating just how important this current piece of policy is.  There are a lot of Conservatives, farmers and hunters speaking out against this policy, and they have a lot of big support behind them.  Because of this, it is important for women’s and other social service organizations to work together to keep the legislation in place.

As a first step, on Sunday Maribel and I will travel to Ottawa so I can begin meeting with individuals representing women’s and other domestic violence organizations in order to rally their support for the IANSA Disarming Domestic campaign.  In the meantime, I will continue my new personal mission of driving down a street without getting lost, which has been rare since leaving Minneapolis.  At least as a consolation, Waterloo provides some pretty amazing scenery. 

Waterloo Sunset

Waterloo Sunset.