2024-Q2 Femicide as a Distinct Article in the Criminal Code of Canada
Whereas #1 femicide was significantly introduced into the lexicon of terms used to describe the murder of women in Canada at least as far back as 1989 with the murder of fourteen young women students simply because they were women in what has become known as the Montreal Massacre on December 6 of that year; and
Whereas #2 femicide or feminicide, as it is sometimes known, is the most extreme and brutal form of gender-based violence (GBV) and is defined as “intentional murder of women because they are women” and according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) data from 2017, 87,000 women and girls around the world were intentionally killed – more than half (50,000) by intimate partners; and
Whereas #3 according to the World Health Organization (WHO) most causes of femicide are committed by partners or ex-partners and involve abuse in the home, threats or intimidation, sexual violence or situations where women have less power or fewer resources; and
Whereas #4 femicide falls into two categories: intimate partner and non-intimate partner: the first referring to the killing of women by current or former partners, while the latter encapsulates the killing during armed conflict as weapons of war, so-called honour killings, murder because of race or sexuality, those perpetrated by other women acting as agents of patriarchy, and the killing of transgender women; and
Whereas #5 both the Canadian Observatory for Justice and Accountability and Statistics Canada have reported that the killing of women and girls simply because they are women, mostly by men, has increased, including the killing of women by male partners; and
Whereas #6 the Inquest Jury reporting on the killing of three women in Renfrew County, Ontario by a former partner made 86 recommendations including that femicide be identified in the Criminal Code of Canada as a separate offence to draw attention to the serious crime that it is; therefore be it
Resolved #1 that the National Council of Women of Canada adopt as policy that femicide be identified as a separate article in the Criminal Code of Canada in order to identify the intentional killing of women and female children simply because they are women and female children; and be it further
Resolved #2 that the National Council of Women of Canada urge the Government of Canada to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to identify femicide as a separate article within the Code.