Legal representation can have a significant impact on women and children’s socio-economic outcomes. And yet, access to a family lawyer is still considered a luxury for many women.
“I’m in a cycle of legal abuse, psychological abuse, and coercive control, and myself and my child are majorly suffering and likely close to complete financial devastation and homelessness if I can’t get help.” —Rise Women’s Legal Centre client
Although rarely discussed, separation and divorce in Canada are major contributors to the feminization of poverty and significant contributors to child poverty. Women tend to earn less money than men, are more likely to hold precarious jobs or work informally, bear the bulk of childcare responsibilities, and are more likely to have custody of children. Post-separation, women see a significant drop in their incomes compared to men. In British Columbia, most lone-parent families are led by women on a median annual income of $46,990, compared to a median annual income of $66,830 for a male lone-parent family. The problem is so widespread that the Supreme Court of Canada, in its 2020 ruling in Michel v Graydon, noted that “gender roles, divorce, separation, and lone parenthood contribute to child poverty and place a disproportionate burden on women.”
At Rise Women’s Legal Centre, we know that having legal representation can have a significant positive impact on women and children’s socio-economic outcomes. And yet, access to a family lawyer is still considered a luxury for many women.
Without legal support, women are more likely to experience litigation abuse. A frequent tactic of abusers is to drag the survivor back to court on frivolous or unnecessary claims, all to intimidate the survivor and drain their financial and legal resources. Abusers may make meritless motions, repeatedly change lawyers at the last minute, fail to obey court orders, and relitigate, making the family law matter “never-ending.” As a result, some survivors go years to decades without access to child or spousal support payments. During this time, the socio-economic effects will have rippled throughout their lives. Their access to housing, childcare, work, and education may be permanently affected, so much of it tied back to the fact that they had little to no access to legal advice and representation to begin with.
Beyond the long-term socio-economic impacts of separation, the high prevalence of intimate partner violence puts women fleeing abuse in danger. Statistics Canada reports that 44% of women in Canada face abuse from an intimate partner in their lifetimes, and for women leaving abuse, family law issues are exacerbated exponentially. Women are six times more likely to be killed by a former partner than a current partner, and lack of access to a lawyer can be deadly. Legal representation and other comprehensive legal supports help women access basic safety measures, such as protection orders and supervised parenting time. Without legal advice and representation services, where do these survivors turn? Through our research, we have found that they are likely to return to their abusive partners, where the violence often escalates.
Funding for access to legal supports
Given the above challenges, it’s no surprise that many women cannot afford adequate legal representation. That’s why funding for legal supports – typically delivered through legal non-profits – is crucial. Yet, in our 10 years of providing family law services to women and gender-diverse people across BC, we have consistently struggled to find funding for this critical service.
To make matters worse, government funding for these services is about to become even more scarce. On March 31, 2026, the Department of Justice’s funding to 23 organizations across Canada – including Rise Women’s Legal Centre – will come to an end, with no possibility of renewal.
This is where philanthropy comes in.
Philanthropic investment in family law services can play a massive role in reducing gender-based violence, alleviating economic hardship, and promoting women’s successful participation in the economy. The flexible funding that philanthropy can provide allows non-profits – experts in their field and their services – to deliver effective and critical support to those in need.
Philanthropic investment in family law services can play a massive role in reducing gender-based violence, alleviating economic hardship, and promoting women’s successful participation in the economy.
Some foundations, like the Law Foundation of BC, are already stepping up. It has provided Rise with three years of funding to continue services that were previously funded by the Department of Justice, with additional flexibility in how those services are delivered.
But what about foundations that don’t have an explicit focus on the law? Many would consider funding for women’s legal representation to be a niche project that falls outside their mission. Yet as described above, this intervention is directly tied to a wide range of mandates, including economic improvements, child and youth mental health, community safety, societal well-being, and more.
Others in philanthropy may say that they are focused only on systems change and don’t fund direct services. Indeed, philanthropy can easily fall into the trap of a “bootstrap” mentality. Funders don’t want to fund ongoing services because they don’t want people to be “dependent” on their funds. Though system change is certainly needed, the reality is that structural changes will take decades to be enacted, and without a dual approach – support to both systemic approaches and direct services – family law issues will continue to create cycles of poverty and abuse for women and children in the present. More than that, the best organizations for delivering systemic-change work are organizations with boots on the ground. As a direct-service organization, we are better equipped to deliver systems-change work because we have deep understanding of the issues as they arise and as they adapt and change.
This is a callout to the philanthropic sector: consider the unintended negative consequences of your highly focused approach. If we open our eyes to the ripple effects of individual women’s circumstances, the role for a wide range of philanthropic actors becomes not only justified, but necessary.
