- Just under 40% of Canadian women report having had at least one experience of sexual assault since the age of 16.
- Between 1995 and 2004, 626 women were murdered by their male spouse. Causes of death included but were not limited to shooting, stabbing, strangulation and beating.
- Nearly one-fifth of all incidents of violent victimization, including physical assault, sexual assault and robbery, occurred in the victim's workplace in 2004.
Violence against women is a problem that undermines the human rights, dignity and equality of women in Canada and throughout the world at alarming rates. Canada urgently needs both a national strategy to end violence against women, and culturally specific programs dealing with violence against women. These should be developed by grassroots feminist and Aboriginal anti-violence |
agencies, such as shelters, sexual assault and rape crisis centres, in conjunction with provincial and territorial partners. It is no longer acceptable for various levels of government to hide behind jurisdictional arguments in defence of their own inaction. Survivors of violence have repeatedly identified what they urgently need to escape violence:
- free or low-cost family law legal aid,
- affordable housing,
- access to supports and resources provided by the autonomous women’s movement, which prioritizes women’s liberty and equality
* This analysis is based on public information available as of September 10, 2008.
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