By JAMES MATTHEWS
The increase in incidents of violence against women in Ontario disturbs groups that provide services to women in Haliburton County.
And county council heard when it met Dec. 11 that it’s a trend that should concern everybody who has a daughter, a wife, a girlfriend, a mother. Everybody who knows a woman.
In a period of 104 weeks recently, 124 women in Ontario were murdered by somebody they loved, said Kim Dolan, executive director at the Haliburton Peterborough YWCA.
“It’s more than one woman a week and, frankly, one woman ever is too many,” she said. “And that really compels us to take action.”
She said Haliburton County comprises more than 4,000 square kilometres of land and lakes. That’s about five people per square kilometres.
And therein lies an important fact to remember, she said.
“About the distance in geography and how isolating it is for the women we serve,” she said.
According to Statistics Canada, there are 5,580 women in Haliburton County between the ages of 15 and 64. Of those, about 2,870 women are older than 65.
“And we know that 30 per cent of women over the age of 15 experience gender-based violence,” Dolan said. “It happens to our girls, our friends, our mothers, our aunties and we’ve worked with many women who are 70 and older.
“In this county we can conservatively estimate that over 2,500 women have or are experiencing violence.”
Rural realities are significant barriers for women with and without children. Those realities are social and physical isolation, challenges with transportation and communication, and often easy access to firearms.
There are issues related to income and a livable wage, she said.
“We’ve heard stories from women for years that when their abusive husband or boyfriend leaves for work during the day, the phones go with him whether it’s a landline or a cellphone,” Dolan said.
Intimate partner violence, domestic violence, and sexual violence are prevalent forms of gender-based violence against women, said Brittany MacMillan, the executive director at the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre in Peterborough. The centre and the YWCA have linked up and will provide supports to Haliburton County in January.
The violence includes many types of harm caused by somebody with whom the woman has a relationship, MacMillan said.
“It does not discriminate and can result in immediate long lasting health, social, and economic consequences,” she said.
Nycole Duncan, the Women’s Centre and Haliburton Emergency Rural SafeSpace executive director, said the violence can happen anywhere. And there are many reasons why women in rural and remote settings are at increased risk.
“Traditional beliefs about gender roles, the permanence of marriage—until death do us part—shame, blame from themselves or from others, and secrecy,” Duncan said.
Incidents of gender-based violence against women in rural areas that are reported to police are 75 per cent higher than those in urban areas, she said.
Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam were murdered in September 2015 by a man with whom each of the women had a past relationship. None of them knew about his history of violence towards women.
Not at first, anyway.
Each of the women thought the former relationship was in the past. And their murders highlighted the critical failures in systems meant to protect victims of intimate partner violence.
A coroner’s inquest was held to investigate circumstances that led to three femicides on the same day. It resulted in a series of recommendations aimed at preventing future violence and improving protections for those at risk.
In total, 86 recommendations for change were made in June 2022. Among the top recommendations was to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic.
Change was recommended to oversight and accountability, system approaches, collaboration and communication, funding, education and training, measures addressing perpetrators of intimate partner violence, intervention, and safety.
Dolan said her organization gathers information about women who are the victims of intimate femicide. That pool of information is limited to what’s covered by newspapers.
“There isn’t one location that collects the data,” she said.
Incidents of women murdered declined a little from 2018 to 2020. But then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and the women’s centre heard from women from rural areas especially that the violence happened more frequently.
“And that each violent incident was more dramatic and more harmful,” Dolan said.
The past two years saw another spike in incidents.
“Higher than we had seen in a very, very long time,” she said. “The trend line is disturbing.”
Police forces use the term homicide, but that’s specific to men, she said. The term femicide speaks about the impact on women.
Duncan said women are at greatest risk from those they know and often live with and love.
“Being at home is the least safe place to be,” Duncan said.
Particularly for women living in northern rural communities rather than southern rural or urban settings, according to Statistics Canada information.
“And we are northern,” Duncan said.
Intimate partner violence is an epidemic and as many as 95 Ontario municipalities have formally declared it as such. The provincial government has yet to make such a declaration.
“We do remain hopeful,” said Dolan. “I know that there’s been lots of letters and lots of support in asking our provincial government (to declare an epidemic).”
Councillor Liz Danielsen, the mayor of Algonquin Highlands, suggested the term intimate partner violence could apply to male victims and all sexual orientations as it does to women.
Dolan acknowledged that the term applies to women, gender diverse individuals, people who identify as 2SLGBTQ, and men.
“The current data that we have is that about 80 per cent of victims of intimate partner violence are women,” she said.
Often when a woman murders a man with whom they’ve been intimate, it follows years of abuse.
“Women tend to be motivated more by trying to save their own lives and the lives of their children,” Dolan said.
