International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls

Today marks the launch of the 2020 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, which will run from this November 25th to December 10th. 

Today is also the 39th celebration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. 

While the theme of this year’s 16 Days Campaign is “From Awareness to Accountability,” it is important to start this effort by laying out some facts. 

What is violence against women and girls? According to the United Nations (UN), it encompasses intimate partner violence (physical, emotional, sexual abuse and femicide), sexual violence and harassment writ large, human trafficking, female genital mutilations, and child marriage. The list is not exhaustive. 

Following that wide description, the popular imagination would often picture the oppression of women and girls in the global south, where inequalities are more flagrant. But the UN noted that violence against women and girls is “one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today and remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.” 

As such, Canada is not immune from this kind of violence or gender-based inequality. In fact, Canada dropped from rank 16 to 19 in terms of gender parity according to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Report. Canada can pride itself for having reached full parity in educational attainment, and for remaining in a relatively high place when it comes to political empowerment (25th place) and economic empowerment (30th place). Yet Canada ranked 105th out of 153 in terms of equal access to health care and quality of care, despite the subindex being “where the average gender gap is the smallest.” A lot of work needs to be done. 

Rankings can only do so much to depict the picture of violence against women and girls in Canada; larger numbers do help. 

In 2018, there were 28, 700 sexual assaults reported to the police, with women being three times more likely than men to experience this kind of violence. 2018 also marked the fourth consecutive year of increase in police reported sexual assaults. A woman is killed by her intimate partner every six days on average. 

There are a number of compounded (or intersectional) factors that can impact the victimization of women and girls in Canada. For example, Indigenous women reported having experienced a violent crime almost three times higher than non-Indigenous women in 2014, and the homicide rate of Indigenous women and girls was sevenfold that of non-Indigenous women and girls in 2018. Twice as many women with disabilities reported having experienced a violent crime as their able-bodied counterparts, and the rate is the same for lesbian, gay and bisexual Canadians compared to heterosexual Canadians. Being poor, living in remote areas, being transgender, being under the age of 24, being a person of colour, and being a senior are also among those intersectionalities that create additional vulnerabilities (Status of Women Canada).

Those numbers are staggering, and getting the full picture is difficult as the data relies on police reports and on how that data is classified. In fact, most victims of gender-based violence do not report it, due to fear of not being taken seriously or by fear of reprisals. Additionally, the way police departments classify instances of gender-based violence is not homogenous across the country, which creates more gaps in the data. As well, as of today, national data on persons of colour and transgender is lacking, despite evidence of higher rates of victimization. 

More needs to be done, and raising awareness is no longer sufficient. In fact, the official 16 Days Campaign team sadly noted that “all the years spent fighting to raise awareness about gender-based violence has not brought about lasting, fundamental change.” 

This is a fundamental issue which brings about the question: how can grassroots organizations obtain buy-in from their government? Throughout these blog posts, the different authors and myself will try to find answers. 

In the meantime, if you or someone you know experience violence, you can find the appropriate resources on this page.