Document Type

Policy Points

Publication Date

8-2026

Department

International Migration Research Centre

Abstract

Gender-Based Violence (GBV) remains a critical social, public health, and governance challenge in Canada, particularly for migrant and refugee women (Tastsoglou, 2025). This is increasingly prominent at the local level in the Waterloo Region, particularly for African and racialized diaspora communities navigating settlement, integration, and institutional access. While multi-level governance and frameworks exist at the city, regional, provincial, and federal levels to address GBV, they tend to work in silos, and local implementation gaps persist. The gaps are shaped by cultural stigma, fragmented service delivery, precarious immigration status, formalinformal networks of support, and unequal access to culturally responsive support systems.

This Policy Points paper presents key findings and policy recommendations emerging from the conference Beyond Blame: Collaborative Solutions to GBV, co-hosted with the African Women’s Alliance of Waterloo Region (AWAWR) and the International Migration Research Centre (IMRC) at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA), in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, on November 29, 2025. The conference convened community leaders, service providers, educators, police representatives, scholars, and advocates to examine GBV prevention through collaborative, culturally grounded approaches. Building on these discussions and informed by research on global migration governance and community protection, as well as related conversations, this paper advances locally actionable policy directions for the Waterloo Region.

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