Shining a light on the ongoing gender violence crisis

Opinion

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This article was published 28/11/2024 (289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For many women activists, it has been difficult to be optimistic about the future, particularly given the recent re-election of Donald Trump in the United States. For some, it feels like economic policy has won over women’s rights.

The pessimism continues as November winds down with the commemoration of domestic violence awareness month and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence begins. This is an annual international campaign that started Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and goes until Dec. 10, Human Rights Day.

This campaign started in 1991 by the United Nations as a call to speak up about gender-based violence and to renew a commitment to ending violence against women, girls and LGBTTQ+ individuals.

The statistics remain disturbingly high. According to the Canada Women’s Foundation, in Canada “a woman or girl is killed by violence every 48 hours.” Indigenous and Black women, LGBTTQ+ people, young people, and women with disabilities face even higher risks.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are the two provinces with the highest rates of intimate partner violence in Canada. In Winnipeg, calls regarding domestic events kept police busy, making up 14 per cent of the calls for service in 2023.

Yet, there are concerns that those numbers no longer shock us.

Doris Mae Oulton, an organizer with the University Women’s Club (UWC), suggests “gender violence is almost becoming normalized — it should cause us all outrage when it happens and it (sort of) has become ‘oh well’ — someone else has been killed; maimed; destroyed.”

The UWC is holding an invitation-only event this afternoon at the Lieutenant Governor’s House as part of the 16 days of activism to “shine some light on the topic,” says Oulton.

Justice Lore Mirwaldt, Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in the Family Services Division; Diane Redsky, community activist and CEO of Kekekoziibii Development Corporation; and, Kendra Nixon, the director of RESOLVE will discuss the issues surrounding gender violence in Canada today.

For Oulton, it’s sobering that intimate partner violence remains an ongoing issue in this country.

“I don’t think 30 years ago that any of us who were working on this issue (I was ADM of the Women’s Directorate at that time) believed that we would still be … but at least they no longer make jokes about it in Parliament.”

“This issue should be important to everyone — we should be living in a society where violence is simply not acceptable — but our shelters are fuller than they have ever been; gender violence seems to have diversified and gender violence in some sectors is an avalanche as increased incidents are uncovered. We have food drives and do boxes for Christmas for women in shelters but the violence doesn’t stop.”

Indeed, a report released Monday by Women’s Shelters Canada suggests the housing crisis is affecting intimate partner violence. The national study says 97 per cent of shelter workers say that in 2023 it was harder to support survivors seeking housing and women fleeing violence needed to stay longer than in the previous year.

As well, the report determined “community resources like mental health and addictions supports, homelessness organizations, food banks, and health care have become dangerously oversubscribed. Because of increased demand for all these supports, shelters are taking on more of these roles internally.”

Again, the economy is trumping women’s survival. And until there’s a concentrated decision by governments at all three levels to commit to this as a fundamental right, nothing much will change.

Oulton is somewhat upbeat. She says now at least people are now more aware of the issue and motivated to make substantive changes.

Governments now must follow with a clear investment in women’s future. The economy and women’s health and safety cannot be seen as oppositional entities. Instead, they are deeply entwined and necessary for the wellbeing of the country.

Shannon Sampert is a political scientist and a lecturer at RRC Polytech. She was the politics and perspectives editor at the Free Press from 2014-17.