The Canadian Femicide Observatory (sic) for Justice and Accountability has just released its #cestunfémicide report to understand the murders of women and girls in Canada from 2018 to 2022. In particular, we learn that nearly 200 women and girls are killed in Canada each year.
In 57% of cases the accused was a current or former male partner and in almost a quarter (22%) a family member. Murders of women and girls involving male accused in Canada have also increased by 27% since COVID, between 2019 and 2022.
Women and girls killed in non-urban areas of the country (45%) were at disproportionate risk compared to their representation in the population, while those killed in urban centers (55%) were underrepresented.
We also learn that 19% of women/girls killed by a male accused were Aboriginal, four times their demographic weight in the Canadian population (5%). There are proportionally fewer women/girls killed in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada (ie a mortality rate of 0.52 against 0.87 for Canada as a whole).
These killings, called feminicides, result from a continuum of violence and terror, including a range of verbal and physical assaults that are directed specifically against women and girls, because of their gender. These sexist acts have no place in an egalitarian society.
Our governments must do more to put an end to this degrading and inhumane situation and to ensure that women are respected everywhere and at all times.
The official recognition of femicide, as a separate crime, is a condition sine qua non to prevent and counter this ultimate violence against women. Twenty countries have adopted, since 2007, specific legislation or even amended their Penal Code in order to recognize feminicides, but not Canada.
Canada must distinguish femicides from homicides in the Criminal Code in order to send a strong signal and demonstrate the importance it attaches to this social problem. This would make it possible to specify the appropriate penalties and to determine the preventive elements to be put in place.
Femicides also take place in an international context since some of them stem from human trafficking, “honour” killings and others. Canada must therefore, at a minimum, adhere to the Inter-American Convention for the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (the Belém do Pará Congress), as it committed to do in 2018, to clearly express its international commitment to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women and girls.
In Quebec
In 2022, the Government of Quebec inaugurated an integrated government strategy for ConAddressing Sexual Violence, Domestic Violence and Rebuilding Trust. The latter is based in particular on the work of the Viens Commission, the Committee for the Review of Deaths Linked to Domestic Violence, the Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence and the Commission special on the sexual exploitation of minors.
This strategy includes the continuation of the activities of the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, set up in 2018, and responsible for identifying the main findings and systemic issues related to such deaths, based on the analysis of the coroners’ inquest records.
However, by limiting its mandate to the study of domestic violence, the Quebec government seems to neglect non-intimate feminicides, that is, those in which the woman or girl did not share an intimate or family relationship with the accused. This is the case of feminicides linked to human trafficking, organized crime or certain murders of indigenous women and girls.
It is important that the Government of Quebec act to prevent and counter all feminicides in Quebec. To do this, it must create a Quebec observatory of feminicides, to better identify, understand and counter this ultimate violence in the Quebec context and to put pressure on the federal government to include femicides in the Criminal Code.