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The B.C. government is dedicating $10 million to improve services for sexual assault survivors, a move advocates say could help women experiencing gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s no question that we are in challenging times right now and unfortunately gender-based violence, including sexual assault, is known to increase during these times,” Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said in announcing the funding this morning.

“Violence is never acceptable and it has absolutely no place in our province. We’re committed to ensuring all British Columbians have timely access to the services and supports that they need when they need them.”

The Ending Violence Association of B.C. has received the funding and, in partnership with the government, will issue three-year grants to sexual assault centres and anti-violence programs across the province.

Tracy Porteous, the association’s executive director, said while it’s too early to tell whether gender-based violence has gone up due to COVID-19, front-line support workers are “worried about is a tsunami of demand for their help once the lockdown is lifted.”

“While people are still being asked to stay home, survivors aren’t free to reach out for help,” she said.

Porteous said things were “eerily quiet” with very few reports of sexualized violence in the first four weeks of the pandemic.

In the next two weeks, she said, more reports of gender violence and referrals from police departments started coming in to sexual assault centre across the province.

Porteous pointed to the situation in China, where an “onslaught of survivors” asked for help once the lockdown was lifted.

“Once we are in phase 3 [of B.C.’s restart plan] and people are a lot more free to move about, we are bracing for a higher demand,” she said.

The new funding will allow sexual assault centres across the province, some of which are staffed by a single person, to meet that demand, she said, and it will also allow new services in remote areas and in Indigenous communities where they didn’t exist before.

Mitzi Dean, parliamentary secretary for gender equity, said as people are forced to stay home during the pandemic and limit contact with family and friends, at-risk women could be further isolated.

“For many, staying home is not safe and now they are even more afraid of violence and abuse,” she said.

After funding cuts in 2002, Porteous said many sexual assault centres have been “cobbling together” money through bake sales and fundraising campaigns. This three-year funding will allow organizations to develop more sustainable programs to help survivors, she said.

Sexual assault disproportionately impacts women, girls and LGBTQ2S+ people. Indigenous women and girls are also especially at risk.

One of the most common services offered by sexual assault centres is accompanying victims to hospital, Porteous said.

Front-line support workers have had to adapt to working in a pandemic, Porteous said, and sexual assault centres had to obtain personal protective equipment so they could accompany people inside emergency rooms.

Porteous hopes the pandemic will offer lessons to anti-violence organizations in terms of being more mobile and using creative ways to reach out to women who are isolated.

kderosa@timescolonist.com