Femicides rising across Canada: Report finds a woman being killed every two days

At least 850 women and girls in Canada were violently killed between 2018 and 2022, mostly at the hands of men, according to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability’s recently released annual report.

It means a woman or girl is killed every two days nationwide.

“This is a crisis. Women are dying every 48 hours,” said Linda Basque of Info-Femmes.

The report also finds there was a 27 per cent increase in killings of women and girls by a male suspect from 2019 to 2022.

“It just shows that in the pandemic context, we’ve seen more of these rates go up of all forms of gender-based violence, including intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and femicide, and that we have to treat it as an emergency and not just take it for granted that this violence is going to happen,” explained Andrea Gunraj, Canadian Women’s Foundation’s VP of public engagement.

The report finds the average age for a woman killed by a male accused is 42-years-old and about one in five female victims killed by a male accused were Indigenous.

“Do we have everything we need to prevent and intervene in this violence, which is traumatic, very complicated, and long-lasting? No, we don’t in Canada. And that’s the point. It’s about time that we start thinking about it from that whole community perspective, looking at the complicated ways that it plays out, and the risk factors before, during, and after,” explained Gunraj.

Advocates have been calling for femicides to be recognized in the Criminal Code of Canada.

“It’s something that happens because we live in a society where it’s still possible that things like that can happen because minor types of violence, and coercive control are still minimized and trivialized. And the more we will take these types of violence seriously, the more we will see that that’s the route, you know. Control is power and control. So we need to fight this in our society,” explained Claudine Thibaudeau, clinical supervisor with SOS violence conjugale.

“Sometimes when events like the pandemic happen, it doesn’t help. It throws a stick in the wheel if you want. It makes it more difficult for victims to leave violent situations. It gives power to abusers. That’s what we seem to see, at least in situations of intimate partner violence, for sure. I’m not surprised, but I’m extremely sad about it. It shows that we still need to work hard at fighting violence against women.”

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Basque adding, “it will also give us the possibility of finding new ways of dealing with this problem because so far we’ve been what we’ve been doing, what our governments have been doing is finding ways to protect women and young girls from intimate partner violence. But we need to do more.”

The report titled #Call it femicide says 22 countries have the term femicide implemented in some legislation.

“I think naming it as femicide and having it listed in policy and programs and solutions is a great tool. But let’s think about this for a second. It’s a bigger issue than just naming it” said Gunraj.

“I recognize that many times people do say, why don’t you go to the police when somebody is hurting you? The problem is many people don’t feel safe enough to go to the authorities. And many times, police, prosecution, and prison can only deal with the problem after it happens, not before. So it’s not the greatest when it comes to preventing and ending violence. And that’s the goal. We want to get the violence to zero.”

Gunraj says if you know somebody who’s going through violence there are a couple of steps you can take to support them.

• First: “Let that person know that you’ll be there for them and you’ll support them in a major mental manner. I think that is so important because most people go to their friends and family and coworkers.”
• Second: “I think it’s very important for you to know two or three places that you can refer somebody to, somebody who might be able to help them in a more expert way. And that’s perhaps a crisis that that’s perhaps a shelter or a service that they can go to in their community.”

If anyone needs support, they can visit the SOS conjugale website or call 1-800-363-9010.