Dangerous Rise in Femicides
According to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, femicide is defined as the killing of women and girls, however there are also various types. The eight murders that we have seen throughout the past eight weeks in the province can be categorized as intimate femicide, which is women being killed by former or current partners. This has also raised questions in the province about domestic abuse and violence in general against women.
Elisapee Angma, age 44
Marly Edouard, age 32
Nancy Roy, age 44
Slyvie Bisson, age 60
Myriam Dallaire, age 28
Nadège Jolicoeur, age 40
Rebekah Harry, age 29
Kataluk Paningayak-Naluiyuk, age 43.
Eight women killed in eight weeks.
With the murder of Rebekah Harry, many called upon the government to take action against violence against women. There will even be protests in the coming days to mourn these women as well as bring awareness to the very serious and dangerous issue of domestic violence. There have been multiple attempts and will be more to provide resources to heavily underfunded women’s shelters that can potentially save a woman’s life.
Deputy premier Genevieve Guilbault held a press conference in the wake of Rebekah’s death, condemning the femicides and claiming she will offer help to the women’s shelters. Additionally, Isabelle Charest, who is the status of women minister, stated that she believes that the rise in deaths and domestic violence as a whole has been worsened because of the pandemic, which is very true. According to CTV news, the Canada’s Assaulted Women’s Helpline received about 20, 334 calls between September 1st and December 31st, 2020 compared to the 12, 352 they received the previous year.
Premier Francois Legault even stated that he would be helping in the situation, by specifically speaking to men, because let’s be real, women have done nothing wrong in these situations. While this is not meant to invalidate male victims of domestic abuse because they are real and sadly, even more misrepresented due to the societal pressure’s men face to be tough, in these recent murders, the solution to the problem at hand is aiding men with their mental health and getting women out of these dangerous situations.
This happened in the wake of the death of Sarah Everand, who was murdered by a police officer in the U.K and raised conversations about women’s safety all over the world, even with a popular statistic going viral, 97% of women aged 18-27 in the UK have been sexually harassed.
This has been a dangerous women’s month with a rise in femicides, including the murder of six Asian women in Atlanta. It is time to have discussions about the protection of women and holding men accountable for aggressions against women and even microaggressions that lead to dangerous behavior. Let’s not call the murder of innocent people a bad day for a white man and call it what it is, a hate crime, an atrocity, and let’s do better to help women and make sure that situations like this will never happen again. That no one will have to lose a mother, a sister, a daughter, ever again.
By Isabella Del Grosso
