Hilla Kerner joined Vancouver Rape Relief thirteen years ago. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter is the longest standing rape crisis centre in Canada.  Since 1973, the group who is self organized as a collective has responded to close to 46,000 women seeking support in their escape from male violence. Since they opened their transition house in 1981, they have housed over 3,000 women and over 2,600 children.

They serve 1200 women a year, and house roughly 100 women fleeing violence at any given time. Many of the women they service are poor, indigenous, and have been prostituted. Vancouver Rape Relief is sustained by grassroots donations. You can donate to the organization here.

This interview with Hilla Kerner took place on May 26, 2019, on Derrick Jensen‘s radio show “Resistance Radio,” which is broadcast on the Progressive Radio Network.

Derrick Jensen is a coauthor of Deep Green Resistance, and the author of Endgame, The Culture of Make Believe, A Language Older than Words, and many other books. He was named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World” and won the Eric Hoffer Award in 2008. He has written for Orion, Audubon, and The Sun Magazine, among many others.

Resistance Radio covers ecology and feminist themes. Episodes can be found on YouTube or browse all of the interviews in our Resistance Radio archive.

Hilla Kerner can also be found on Twitter, where she is outspoken on issues of poverty, destruction of the planet, and violence against women.