A/HRC/41/42/Add.1 the protection of their country of origin. Although section 97 of the Act was meant to bring it into line with the international obligations of Canada under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Special Rapporteur highlights that a number of studies have shown that, in practice, Refugee Protection Division adjudicators fail to assess the gendered aspects of a claimant’s fear of persecution for gender-based violence and will instead suggest that these women are fleeing from a generalized risk of crime. This is a result of the failure to clearly enumerate gender as a separate basis on which refugee status can be claimed. 92. Of concern is the inability of migrants and refugee victims of violence to gain access to a separate permit permission and available services and assistance, including legal aid. Women who arrive in Canada as sponsored spouses are often unable to leave sponsored relationships that have become violent, as a result of application criteria that fail to consider the realities of abused women. 5. Violence against rural women 93. In 2016, 16 per cent of the population of Canada lived in rural areas, where some 24 per cent of violent crime, 18 per cent of property crime, 23 per cent of other Criminal Code offences, 32 per cent of impaired driving and 22 per cent of drug crime occurred. As noted, some types of crimes are overrepresented, and victimization rates are highest for women in rural areas, including concerning violent crime. For 2017, police-reported rates of violent crime were higher for women of all age groups in rural than in urban areas. Crimes committed by intimate partners are also disproportionately high in rural areas. 94. Among the issues exacerbating violence against women in the rural context are social isolation, access to weapon and unregulated fire arms, the lack of legal representation and of Internet access, limited public transportation and day-care services, and economic crisis and poverty. The lack of access to services for women and confidentiality when reporting abuses and social and cultural psychological isolation also exacerbate violence against women and girls in rural areas, including in terms of the underreporting of violence. VI. Conclusions and recommendations 95. Based on the above findings and in a spirit of cooperation and dialogue, the Special Rapporteur, in whose mandate Canada played a leading role in establishing, offers the Government of Canada the following recommendations: (a) With respect to the international framework on women’s rights, ratify the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture; (b) Effectively and fully harmonize laws at all levels of national jurisdiction with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and, with regard to indigenous women, with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; (c) Consider enacting a federal law on combating and preventing violence against women and domestic violence, based on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 35 (2017) on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women; (d) Harmonize legislation on violence against women and domestic violence in all federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions in line with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and other international and regional human rights instruments, and commit itself to ensuring that feminist and equalityseeking groups are systematically involved in the framing and monitoring of all the law reform initiatives on violence against women; 17