The ending of the trial in which three members of the Shafia family were found guilty of murdering four other members of the family was mercifully brief: just two days of jury deliberation.

Four women died because Mohammad Shafia felt his family honour could be restored only if the "stain" caused by the struggle of his three daughters to be free was washed out with blood.

Britain and Sweden, which, like Canada, have had to face a toll of death and abuse in families where a patriarch exerts a harmful level of control, have developed services and strategies that are tailored to individual communities or dynamics. Understanding a community's danger signals is a way of knowing when and how to intervene.

We are a country of immigrants. With the richness that immigration brings comes the duty of those already in place to try harder to understand and protect newcomers.

Something good has come from this terrible story. People across the country were riveted by the trial. When the verdict came in, it was obvious that Canadians had taken the three sisters and their aunt to their hearts. They were not foreigners. They were us, members of the Canadian family. The best thing we could do now is try to make sure the next girl or woman who faces what they faced will not have to meet that danger alone.