Title: FLSQ - From Silence to Systems Change: Collective Strategies to End Femicide and Gender-Based Violence

Date: Monday, September 29, 2025

Description: Every 48 hours in Canada, a woman, girl or gender-diverse person is killed in an act of femicide. This lecture examines gender-based violence (GBV) prevention locally in Ottawa, nationally across Canada and internationally within movements to end femicide. It will explore systemic barriers rooted in colonialism and exclusion, alongside new strategies for coordination, accountability and community-led change. Drawing on Ottawa’s three-year GBV Action Plan, the session highlights bold, community-driven approaches to ending femicide.

Speakers:

• Astara van der Jagt - Director of Programs, Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women (OCTEVAW); Founder/CEO, EquiShift

Podcast: 

Transcript:

00:00:00
I'm Bita Amani, co-director of Feminist Legal Studies Queens with Professor Deborah Hawk.
00:00:04
And it is my distinct pleasure to be welcoming you today for our second speaker in the FLSQ Speaker Series and Workshop for Credit.
00:00:16
I'd like to begin with a land acknowledgement.
00:00:18
Of course, Queen's University is situated on the traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory, and to acknowledge this traditional territory
00:00:28
is to recognize its longer history, and that's one predating the establishment of the earliest European colonies.
00:00:35
The territory remains of significance, of course, for Indigenous peoples who live and continue to live upon this land, whose practices and spiritualities are tied to the land and continue to develop in relationship to the territory and inhabitants today.
00:00:51
We've been blessed with a really nice, warm, sunny fall.
00:00:56
I hope that we can engage in some mindful meditation as we walk on the land, and in particular, as we move into tomorrow's Truth and Reconciliation, National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
00:01:09
Every day should be National Truth and Reconciliation Day, in my opinion.
00:01:15
And I'm lucky to be able to play and work on these lands.
00:01:21
The Kingston Indigenous community continues to reflect the areas in Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee roots.
00:01:26
There is a significant Metis community, and there are First Peoples from other nations across the Rule Island present here today.
00:01:33
It's my distinct pleasure to be welcoming Sarah Venderjacht as our speaker today.
00:01:40
The conversations that we have in FLSQ are really always complicated conversations.
00:01:46
They're difficult conversations, but I feel like it was a synchronistic
00:01:51
gift from the universe, if I may say so, that we are able to have our wonderful speaker today, because I happened to find her through LinkedIn with a comment she posted on another speaker or events page.
00:02:03
I can't recall exactly.
00:02:04
And it was so on point, I reached out and said, can you, please, will you?
00:02:08
And of course was the answer.
00:02:10
So thank you so much.
00:02:11
A little bit about Sarah.
00:02:13
She is the director of the programs at the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women.
00:02:17
And she's the founder, CEO of Equishift, a social impact initiative advancing equity and systems change.
00:02:23
At Octavar, she leads community-driven strategies to prevent gender-based violence, including the development of City of Ottawa's, the City of Ottawa's three-year gender-based violence action plan.
00:02:37
I think this is a nice incremental development on last week's topic as well, regarding the essential implication of housing for women and
00:02:47
domestic violence, gender-based violence survivors.
00:02:51
With A decade of experience in research, policy, advocacy, and program management, Sterra works in the intersection of equity, safety, and community organizing, centering collaboration, intersectionality, and survivor voices in building accountable and transformative systems.
00:03:05
Her talk, From Silence to Systems Change, Collective Strategies to End Femicide and Gender-based Violence, is what she will be presenting today.
00:03:13
Just a quick note on FOSQ.
00:03:14
We were founded as a Senate-approved research body to expand the curricular offerings, both in law school and across the university.
00:03:23
And I think this is a perfect invitation and celebration of interdisciplinarity and expanded curricular offerings.
00:03:30
Thanks, Sarah.
00:03:31
Please welcome her.
00:03:33
Thank you, Bita.
00:03:34
And does this work or do I just have to speak loud?
00:03:37
I just have to speak loud.
00:03:38
That's just for everyone.
00:03:40
All right.
00:03:40
So thank you, Bida and Deborah, for having me at the FSLQ series today.
00:03:49
I'm coming to you from Ottawa, the unceded territories of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.
00:03:55
I will be presenting From Silence to Systems Change, Collective Strategies to End Femicide and Gender-Based Violence to you today.
00:04:04
And so before I start, I know that Bida has already graciously
00:04:09
arrived at this place by doing a land acknowledgement in Kingston.
00:04:14
What I wanted to do as well here is recognize that there are 231 calls for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ folks.
00:04:26
And if you haven't already looked at this report, I encourage you to do so because it lists 231 calls.
00:04:35
A lot of them focus on cultural safety and trauma-informed approaches.
00:04:40
These two themes are very vital to the work that I do, and it's something that I try to integrate into my personal life, into my professional work, and in the ways that I arrive into different places from day-to-day, recognizing that I am here as a settler.
00:05:01
I also want to recognize that tomorrow is National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
00:05:06
And so there are two events that are happening in the city of Kingston.
00:05:10
The city of Kingston is supporting Kingston Native Center and Language Nest in a gathering for community from 1 to 5.30 P.m.
00:05:17
at Confederation Basin tomorrow.
00:05:20
I've also been made aware that this Queen's Law School is also hosting a sacred fire from 1.15 to 3 P.m.
00:05:28
tomorrow.
00:05:29
So I invite you to and encourage you to join one of these two events in commemoration of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and in allyship of the First Nations communities that have been here since time immemorial.
00:05:47
Before I start the presentation, I want to recognize the topics that I'll be discussing today.
00:05:53
Femicide, gender-based violence, these are heavy topics, and so they can be distressing and may bring up a variety of difficult emotions.
00:06:01
And so I also want to make sure that you take care of yourself.
00:06:06
throughout this lecture.
00:06:07
And so you're welcome to step out at any time to take a break, to go for fresh air, or to take water.
00:06:13
You don't need to explain or apologize for that.
00:06:19
I also wanted to share a resource list.
00:06:21
There are supports available in Kingston, Ontario, and nationally.
00:06:25
Some of these are culturally relevant supports.
00:06:27
I invite you to take a photo.
00:06:29
If you don't already have this presentation, it will be shared with you at the end.
00:06:33
of the presentation.
00:06:34
So you'll have access to this as well.
00:06:35
Another reason why this is useful to have on hand is in case you ever need it in the future to support a friend, family member, peer, colleague, classmate.
00:06:47
So take a photo or I'll send the presentation and make sure that you all receive this at the end.
00:06:53
Okay.
00:06:55
So this is the agenda for today's talk.
00:06:57
I'll start with an introduction.
00:07:00
Then I'll do some definitions.
00:07:01
I want us to come together with a grounded foundation in what I'm talking about.
00:07:08
Then I'll focus on the context.
00:07:09
So look at some of the statistics behind the crisis on an international, national, and local scale.
00:07:15
Then I'll discuss some of the root causes and systemic drivers, focus on, again, national, international, and local.
00:07:23
I'll also do a quick discussion of some of the previous engagements that I've been involved in before my time at Octiva and doing work with EquiShift.
00:07:32
And then some of the collective strategies that have been used in the past in some of my previous engagement work as well as what I currently do.
00:07:39
I'll include in this as well some upcoming events that might be of interest.
00:07:45
And then there's a couple of slides on what you can do as future advocates, policy makers, lawyers.
00:07:53
So a quick introduction to who I am.
00:07:55
I'm the director of programs at the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women.
00:08:00
Octiva is a policy advocacy organization that works on public education, government relations, policy advocacy, and a variety of other activities.
00:08:11
We also support families when there are femicides.
00:08:15
Sometimes they come to us and they ask for support, and then we just
00:08:18
decide as a collective to build culturally relevant programming in collaboration with communities.
00:08:24
I'm also the founder of EquiShift, which is a social enterprise that I'm currently in the process of getting off the ground, focused on intersectional advocacy and intersectional movement building, recognizing that different movements come together and they overlap in a variety of different ways to perpetuate marginalization, discrimination and oppression in a variety of different ways.
00:08:46
I've also done PhD research in strengthening the NGO sector to address gender-based violence, which I'm happy to talk about at a different time.
00:08:55
And so another thing that is important about me is that I come to this space as a survivor myself.
00:09:02
I lived through over 15 years of violence, which led to a journey of healing that included psychotherapy, psychology, somatic approaches.
00:09:11
I've done pretty much everything humanly possible to
00:09:15
support myself in healing to be able to turn this lived experience into something that is powerful for myself and for the communities that I serve.
00:09:25
And so when I think about the work that I do and my purpose, it really is to co-design systems and to think about what types of futures I want to live in.
00:09:37
Like what type of world are we actually actively trying to build together?
00:09:41
I think that every single person
00:09:44
has a role to play in that.
00:09:46
And I believe in the individual and collective, more so the collective capacity to build systems that are equitable, that are inclusive, et cetera.
00:10:02
So gender-based violence is violence that is directed at someone because of their gender, gender identity, or gender
00:10:11
expression.
00:10:12
It disproportionately affects women and gender diverse people and can take physical, sexual, psychological, emotional, economic, and spiritual forms, including but not limited to acts such as this list, rape, sexual abuse, economic abuse, intimate partner violence, female genital mutilation, image-based or technology-facilitated abuse, stalking, coercion.
00:10:34
There is a much bigger list than this that I didn't, anyway.
00:10:45
Femicide is the most perverse form of gender-based violence.
00:10:51
It's the gender-related killing of women, girls, and gender-diverse people.
00:10:56
The term was coined in the 1970s by Diana Roswell, and it emerged to challenge the neutrality of homicide and name gender-based killings for what it was.
00:11:08
In my work, I like to talk about indirect femicide.
00:11:11
It is something that isn't reflected in law or policy, for that matter, in Canada yet.
00:11:19
I refer to it as the gender-related killings as a result of systemic neglect, discrimination, and or failures.
00:11:27
And so this is really when deaths are classified as homicide, but result from prolonged abuse, poverty, racism, or state neglect.
00:11:37
And so examples include suicide resulting from forced marriage or long-term physical or sexual abuse, overdose in the absence of harm reduction, and deaths from neglect.
00:11:51
So for example, the failure to protect victims of domestic violence despite repeated reports.
00:11:58
In essence, indirect femicide highlights how systemic gender inequality and the state of societal neglect can be as deadly
00:12:06
as direct acts of violence.
00:12:09
Now, Latin American scholars have expanded the definition, which is reflected in the Latin American protocol, which is in my slides as well.
00:12:18
Feel free to look that up.
00:12:21
They coined the term feminicide, which was introduced by Mexican scholar Marcela Lagarde, who adds a political lens.
00:12:29
And so she refers to feminicide as gender-related killings because of one's gender, paired with state failure to respond, investigate, or prevent.
00:12:39
And so what this term does is that it calls out state complicity, the failure of governments to investigate, prevent, or respond.
00:12:50
Feminicide frames deaths not as isolated tragedies, but as state crimes, exposing fractured justice systems and institutional neglect.
00:13:01
Both these terms, indirect homicide and feminicide,
00:13:06
reveal that feminicide or femicide is not random violence.
00:13:10
It's the most extreme form of gender-based violence, driven by misogyny, colonialism, systemic racism, and a variety of different kinds of oppressive power structures.
00:13:21
And so we are living through this moment of crisis and contradiction.
00:13:27
Around the world, while gender-based violence is escalating, governments are cutting the very services that survivors depend upon.
00:13:35
In 2022, the UN estimated that 81,000 women and girls were killed in 2022.
00:13:43
In Canada, one woman or girl is killed every 48 hours.
00:13:47
And last year alone, 187 women were killed, according to the Femicide Observatory of Canada.
00:13:54
And that equates to, if you look around in this classroom, about 13 of you would have experienced intimate partner violence.
00:14:03
So that
00:14:04
It's a pretty dire statistic, and this is why we have been calling for intimate partner violence to be declared an epidemic provincially, locally, nationally.
00:14:18
4.7 million have been sexually assaulted across Canada, and Indigenous women, 2SLGBTQ+ people, black and racialized women, and women with disabilities are targeted at two to three times the national rate.
00:14:32
We also know that these numbers are likely way smaller than the actual numbers due to under-reporting, misclassification, and a variety of other factors.
00:14:45
To build on that and to bring it to the more local level, we know that studies show that in Ontario, one woman or girl is killed almost every week.
00:14:55
We don't have statistics for gender diverse or non-binary folks.
00:15:00
Since 2023, Ottawa has recorded 15 femicides and over 6,000 intimate partner violence incidents in 2024 alone, with a 9% increase in early 2025.
00:15:16
One thing that I want to highlight here is that I meet people all the time who have no idea that gender-based violence is a crisis in Canada or that femicide still happens in a G7 country.
00:15:30
And so at the same time, the federal government responsible for women and gender equality Canada faces a proposed 81% budget reduction, which directly threatens the lifeline services survivors need.
00:15:50
Okay, let's talk about why this continues to happen.
00:15:55
So I argue that femicide is not random, it's structural.
00:16:01
And femicide persists because power structures continue to allow it.
00:16:05
So some of the root causes embedded in societal structures are and continue to be patriarchy and misogyny, which normalize male entitlement, teaching some that they have the right to control, harm, or end the lives of women, girls, or gender diverse folks.
00:16:22
Colonialism, or settler colonialism in the case of Canada,
00:16:26
leaves behind a legacy of displacement, cultural erasure, and intergenerational trauma, especially among Indigenous communities who continue to face staggering rates of gender-based violence.
00:16:37
Racism and white supremacy, which dehumanize Black, Indigenous, and racialized people, making it thus likely their reports are believed, their lives are protected, or their deaths are investigated.
00:16:49
Poverty and economic insecurity keep survivors trapped, unable to leave violent hopes because of
00:16:55
housing, income, and services that are out of reach.
00:16:58
Ableism silences and disregards disabled survivors, especially when they are placed in institutions or denied agency over their lives.
00:17:07
Homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia increase the risk of family violence, homelessness, criminalization, and exclusion from GBV services that weren't designed for them.
00:17:19
And so femicide doesn't just happen.
00:17:21
It persists because systems fail to intervene over and over.
00:17:27
And so some of the systemic failures that have enabled and that continue to enable femicide are a lack of coordinated services, underfunded and fragmented prevention, gaps in trauma-informed and culturally relevant care, housing inaccessibility, state harm and criminalization, and media decontextualization.
00:17:46
I'm just going to drink.
00:17:52
And so all this to say that femicide is a global emergency.
00:17:56
Recent UN analyses show that 10s of thousands of women and girls are being killed every year.
00:18:03
And so the data shows that many victims had previously experienced or reported, often reported violence more than once.
00:18:12
These global figures reveal similar patterns
00:18:15
everywhere.
00:18:16
Regional differences are stark.
00:18:17
Africa and the Americas record the highest absolute numbers, while Latin Americans' long-standing activist movement has pushed scholars and courts to name the role of state failure and impunity in feminicide.
00:18:31
At the policy level, several multilateral bodies and regional institutions have begun to respond with data collection mandates.
00:18:39
So for example, the EU has imposed rules and laws around domestic violence that condition European Union countries to employ laws around the protection of women, the protection of children, domestic violence, but that might not have followed through on the ground due to social cultural attitudes that might not be aligned with the protection of women and children.
00:19:11
Sorry, I'm not there yet.
00:19:14
Yeah, so last year, the Canadian Femicide Observatory documented 187 women and girls violently killed in 2024, marking a notable increase and drawing attention to undercounting, misclassification, and unresolved cases.
00:19:30
Amnesty International and other national human rights organizations have amplified concerns about the intersections between state policy, under-resourcing, and marginalization, arguing that systemic underinvestment in prevention, shelters, culturally safe spaces and services, and harm reduction approaches contributes directly to preventable deaths.
00:19:49
The sector's own femicide lists and independent trackers also highlight how many victims had prior contact with police, shelters, or other systems,
00:19:57
evidence that repeated help-seeking has often failed to prevent escalation.
00:20:01
These findings have fueled policy debates over crisis-level investments, better data disaggregation, and legal reforms, while advocates urge the federal and provincial governments to treat femicide as a systemic emergency rather than isolated tragedies.
00:20:17
At the municipal scale, the pandemic and its aftermath exposed and intensified gaps in safety nets that keep people very much alive.
00:20:25
Ottawa's own trends mirror national patterns.
00:20:27
Police preliminary statistics show a year-over-year increase in reported intimate partner violence incidents, and local agencies have repeatedly warned of insufficient continuum of housing, refuge, and trauma-informed care.
00:20:43
Municipal declarations, for example, the City of Ottawa,
00:20:46
a declared IPV and epidemic.
00:20:48
But while they have raised awareness, there continues to be an occurrence of killings that indicates that declarations without sustained coordinated funding to back them up, as well as accountable service pathways, are not enough.
00:21:04
On the ground, survivors still face a variety of different challenges, including long shelter wait lists, housing insecurity, food insecurity, culturally inappropriate supports,
00:21:15
and fractured pathways between healthcare, police, and social services.
00:21:21
One of the biggest challenges that Ottawa specifically is facing right now is that GBV shelters don't have any bed space.
00:21:29
And so when a survivor needs to leave the home, often they'll put them in motels where they don't have access to a kitchen, where they might not have access to public transportation if they don't have a car.
00:21:43
And this leads to a cycle of poverty and a cycle of food insecurity that snowballs.
00:21:55
And so I want to talk a little bit about some of my previous engagements, so some of the work that I've done in gender-based violence across the world.
00:22:05
2019 is when I started to work in gender-based violence.
00:22:08
That was when I determined
00:22:10
that I was healed enough to do this work.
00:22:13
And so at the time I was working and living in Nepal, in Kathmandu, and I worked with a variety of women's organizations to co-design capacity building programs.
00:22:24
They included economic empowerment programs where women could build micro businesses.
00:22:30
They included skill development programs where women could learn how to sew and do a variety of different tactile
00:22:39
things to be able to then build their own businesses and create access to socioeconomic opportunities.
00:22:48
And what we realized in building these economic empowerment skill development, we also did some initiatives with children and where they were able to learn to dance and learn to dance together in community, is that when you bring people together in community, it is so important to build
00:23:08
safety within that.
00:23:10
And especially in a context where there are limited formal systems in a country like Nepal, we really, we noticed the very positive impacts that these initiatives that weren't necessarily focused on gender-based violence prevention, which I think can be, A, re-traumatizing in a variety of ways, but B, also
00:23:34
This enables them to be in community without having to be faced with what they went through, what they're continuing to go through.
00:23:44
So personally, for myself, I know that in the process of leaving, you don't always get the supports that you need once you've arrived in safety.
00:23:56
And they're
00:23:59
We don't talk enough about what is needed to create those safety nets.
00:24:04
And those safety nets are required within community.
00:24:07
And that's why I think these economic empowerments and skill development initiatives worked so well for the women and children that had fled different types of abuse in Nepal.
00:24:17
After this, I conducted PhD research in strengthening the NGO sector to address gender-based violence.
00:24:24
I also focused most of my work in Nepal, but I also did a variety of different consultancies and worked on different initiatives across Canada and South Africa.
00:24:36
So one of those initiatives was with Gender Rights in Tech, which is a non-profit based out of Cape Town, South Africa.
00:24:44
Together, we built an app that helps survivors discreetly access resources and reach safety.
00:24:52
To date, we've also supported those over 200 survivors to prosecute their perpetrators in court.
00:25:04
Besides that, I also led a research team to co-design best practices to accommodate transgender and non-binary folks in shelters with Good Shepherd Women's Services in Hamilton, Ontario, which is where I was at, McMaster.
00:25:20
After that, I did some work for Canadian Forces Mobile and Welfare Services.
00:25:25
This was focused on conducting national evaluations of gender-based violence programs across the country, mostly focused on Canadian military families.
00:25:35
And so I was assessing the impact and reach of gender-based violence programs specifically for folks with intersectional identities.
00:25:45
And so integrating A gender-based analysis plus lens
00:25:50
into supports, services, and programs that were already in existence.
00:26:00
And so one, three things that came out of all of these previous experiences was that survivor-led design, cultural relevance, and intersectional analysis were
00:26:13
the cornerstones of meaningful systems change.
00:26:15
Over and over again, I've noticed that when we build systems, when we build programs, when we build services, we need to co-design them with the people they serve, because otherwise they might not actually be as relevant.
00:26:29
They might not be as helpful or supportive to the communities that you're serving.
00:26:33
This to me seems intuitive, but in practice, this hasn't happened all that much to date.
00:26:39
And this is something that I'd like to continue to change.
00:26:44
in my practice.
00:26:48
So now I'll talk to you a little bit about the work that I do at the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women.
00:26:55
This work came, so one of my main priorities is working on designing A three-year gender-based violence and violence against women's action plan that will be implemented by the City of Ottawa from 2026 to 2028.
00:27:10
And so every
00:27:12
municipality is provincially mandated in Ontario to build a city, sorry, a community safety and well-being plan.
00:27:22
Kingston also has it, so I encourage you to take a look at your plan and to see what is most important to the residents of Kingston.
00:27:31
And so back in 2021, going forward until now,
00:27:36
The City of Ottawa did engagement with hundreds of different people in different sectors, in different fields of expertise.
00:27:45
And what they came up with were initially 6, now they have 7 priorities, one of which was gender-based violence.
00:27:52
So some of the others are youth social development, housing, financial security, discrimination, integrated and simpler systems, and mental well-being.
00:28:03
And so since gender-based violence was one of the seven priorities identified by the City of Ottawa and its citizens, they are now building a three-year GBV action plan that'll be implemented in 2026.
00:28:22
And so when I was hired to build this plan, I recognized that
00:28:28
There are a variety of different sectors that work with gender-based violence survivors.
00:28:32
You have GBV shelters, you have frontline organizations, there's community health centers, community resource centers, and a variety of different grassroots organizations and cultural community centers and groups, all working in tandem, but not necessarily together on preventing gender-based violence and femicide within the city.
00:28:56
And so we identified that there were a variety of different things that we wanted to be the grounding framework.
00:29:03
So the principles that we would use to integrate into the action plan, both in building the priorities that would come out of this action plan and also deciding on different activities.
00:29:15
Because ultimately, we want the plan to be community-led, trauma-informed, survivor-centered, intersectional, anti-oppressive, and decolonial.
00:29:23
And so as I go through this work, and just as a note, I am still in the process of building this action plan.
00:29:28
So I cannot share everything that has been done to date, also because we haven't finalized everything yet.
00:29:37
But I will share what I can.
00:29:40
But part of this is thinking about how do I ensure that the process of building this is all of these things to make sure that the activities and the outcomes are also all of these things.
00:29:55
And so over the course of the last years, Octiva, the City of Ottawa, a variety of other organizations have conducted scoping studies, form reports, a variety of different research projects, community consultations, engagements.
00:30:13
And out of that, we've identified A variety of gaps that
00:30:20
that include that 72.5% of gender-based violence organizations report inadequate financial resources, which is a major barrier.
00:30:29
50% of local shelters rely on community volunteers every week, and nearly 20% depend on volunteers for over half of their services.
00:30:42
There's also limited tailored supports.
00:30:45
17.5% of organizations offer programs for refugee women.
00:30:50
While all shelters welcome trans women, only 37% provide tailored services for trans men.
00:30:59
In addition to that, prevention efforts are also constrained.
00:31:02
Although 75% of organizations identify prevention as a priority, only 25% engage men and boys.
00:31:11
So these are big challenges that we're facing, and we're in the process of trying to figure out.
00:31:19
how to solve all of them.
00:31:23
And so what the three-year GBV action plan is meant to be is a blueprint for coordinated action across all of these organizations, municipal departments, shelters, frontline organizations, grassroots cultural groups, and gender-based violence survivors.
00:31:40
And so it includes policy advocacy, government relations, sitting with city councillors, members of parliament,
00:31:48
cross-sector convening.
00:31:49
So at the moment, there's also a review of the housing and homelessness 10-year plan at the City of Ottawa, as well as the 10-year poverty reduction plan.
00:32:02
And so thinking of ways of how we can better coordinate across all of these overlapping sectors.
00:32:11
And then finally, survivor-centered program design.
00:32:14
And so over the course of the summer, I've chaired a GBV advisory group, which has supported me in the design of the initial draft of the action plan.
00:32:26
I've also hosted a validation circle, and there's more to come, with executive directors of gender-based violence shelters, with program managers of frontline organizations and community health centers with gender-based violence survivors.
00:32:43
There's also a town hall coming where I'm going to be talking about the action plan to make sure that...
00:32:49
So on the backdrop of this is that not every organization knows what I'm doing.
00:32:54
And I need folks to know what's in the action plan and to get buy-in from all the folks that have a stake in this work.
00:33:06
And also to make sure that it remains a community-driven effort.
00:33:11
I need to continue to reflect with all of these different groups to ensure that their priorities, their needs are reflected, even though those priorities might change.
00:33:25
And that's one of the challenges of doing this work.
00:33:29
And so in addition to that, I'm also doing one-on-ones, virtual meetings and lunches with folks who aren't able to make it.
00:33:34
Because the reality on the ground is that a lot of non-profit organizations and grassroots groups don't have time to sit with me for five hours at a town hall to talk about, even though it is part of their main priority, gender-based violence prevention, they might not have time.
00:33:54
And so based on
00:33:56
All of what I just said, so the research that has been done, the engagements that have been done, there are six priorities that are still in progress.
00:34:04
I might have more in two months.
00:34:07
But the first is culturally safe and trauma-informed service delivery, ensuring municipal services provide dignified, non-retraumatizing support through internal protocols, staff training, and coaching.
00:34:20
And so this requires buy-in from various city level departments.
00:34:26
And so I'm working with the Community Safety and Wellbeing Office, as well as a variety of other departments, to make sure that we are coordinated.
00:34:38
The second is systemic coordination and integration, creating clear referral pathways, language access, and shared data systems across municipal departments and community agencies.
00:34:49
We know that a lot of gender-based violence survivors get turned away at mainstream shelters.
00:34:54
And so it's really important that we are able to identify the gaps.
00:34:59
And to do that, we need to have accurate data.
00:35:02
And there is a huge lag, and this is interest in Ottawa.
00:35:06
This is nationally, and you see this internationally as well, that there is not just under-reporting, but there's also a massive lack of data disaggregation.
00:35:16
A third is funding equity and sustainability.
00:35:18
So securing long-term flexible funding for grassroots and equity deserving organizations.
00:35:24
This also includes advocating to the federal government to maintain and increase Women and Gender Equality Canada funding, which is currently likely being cut.
00:35:39
The 4th is proactive community-led prevention, which would address drivers such as housing insecurity and poverty through non-carceral, culturally specific interventions.
00:35:51
Finally, data-informed prevention, developing survivor-centered tools that capture intersectional risks while avoiding harm, recognizing that best practices must be context-specific and tailored to specific communities.
00:36:04
And finally, survivor-led accountability.
00:36:07
This is a piece that I'm still in the process of reflecting on.
00:36:14
There's A variety of different activities that can be done to ensure that accountability is in place.
00:36:21
So how do you hold the city accountable to the work that has to be done to prevent gender-based violence and femicide?
00:36:30
At the same time, there are other organizations that also need to be held to account.
00:36:35
And so co-creating public dashboards, community check-ins, and audits to ensure continuous, transparent progress.
00:36:42
And so as I said before, this plan is still very much evolving, but the process itself, which is rooted in, or this is what I'm trying for it to be, rooted in relationship, equity, and survivor leadership.
00:36:57
And hopefully this process allows for systemic change in
00:37:04
in the long run for survivors.
00:37:12
Some of the other ways that we have built collective strategies to end gender-based violence and to raise awareness are public education initiatives.
00:37:24
A couple times a year, we'll build packages that are accessible to the public to help them understand what femicide is, what gender-based violence is, what they can do as individuals, at non-profits, at organizations to support.
00:37:40
Some of these pictures were taken on September 18th during the Take Back the Night rally, where Octiva, in collaboration with 20-something-odd organizations,
00:37:54
organized the Take Back the Night rally, which is a rally against sexual and gender-based violence.
00:37:59
Hundreds of people, even from Lanark County and Toronto, came out to support this.
00:38:06
We have other events as well that focus on culturally relevant support.
00:38:10
So we have a threading solutions, sorry, Fabric of Change, threading solutions to end femicide, where people come together to heal and to build something together.
00:38:21
So last year,
00:38:23
survivors and supporters of gender-based violence survivors came together and built a quilt which has been displayed and we're considering getting it displayed again during the 16 days of activism that starts on November 25.
00:38:41
Yeah.
00:38:42
And so I also want to share some of the upcoming events that might be of interest.
00:38:48
So on October 23, we're coordinating A webinar with the YWCA to host two panelists from the Observatory of Femicide in Puerto Rico.
00:39:01
Earlier, I talked about feminicide, what it means, and how the Latin American protocol integrates state complicity in the term feminicide and also in different ways to prevent femicide from happening.
00:39:16
And so if you're interested, you can shoot me an e-mail or you can shoot Vita or Deborah an e-mail to let me know.
00:39:25
I've also had a chat with the panelists and they're also happy to connect with you if there's interest in that.
00:39:33
They have, in Puerto Rico, they have really interesting, their work is way more progressive, I would say, than in Canada and the States.
00:39:46
Specifically, they actually have feminicide in their civil code.
00:39:51
And they've also done some work on trans feminicide as well, which I believe isn't happening anywhere else.
00:39:58
Some of the other initiatives that are upcoming is there's a nourishment circle, which I'm going to be co-leading with one of my colleagues.
00:40:07
where we're going to be bringing together gender-based violence survivors to learn to cook a nutritious and affordable meal together, followed by having that meal in community together, followed by a co-visioning session around food systems and how food systems can be more accessible to community.
00:40:27
As I said before, there's the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, which is starting on November 25th.
00:40:35
So look out for events around that.
00:40:38
And we also have a December 6th vigil, which is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
00:40:45
And it commemorates the 1989 murder of 14 women at Polytechnique in Montreal.
00:40:54
And so look out for events around December 6th as well.
00:41:01
Here's how you can help.
00:41:03
So
00:41:05
Ending femicide and GBV requires both systemic change and individual action.
00:41:11
You can learn about the structural drivers of violence, including misogyny, colonialism, racism, ableism, and homophobia.
00:41:21
You can also challenge harmful stereotypes in your classrooms, social spaces, and professional networks.
00:41:30
Besides this, grassroots organizations are often the most effective at preventing violence because their programs are culturally safe, tailored to local needs, and informed by lived experience.
00:41:42
So you can donate, volunteer, or provide pro bono legal support where possible.
00:41:48
You could also write to your municipal, can also apply your legal skills.
00:41:54
So as law students,
00:41:56
You can contribute to research, legal advocacy, or pro bono support, as I said before.
00:42:01
And this could include helping to draft submissions to municipal or federal bodies, providing legal information to survivors, or participating in policy and human rights initiatives.
00:42:14
Besides this, you can also advocate for policy change through specific asks.
00:42:18
So some of the asks could be maintaining and increasing funding to wage, declaring intimate partner violence an epidemic, or creating an independent watchdog to hold government accountable to end gender-based violence regardless of political changes.
00:42:33
And you can also use your socials to amplify the voices of survivors and equity-deserving communities.
00:42:39
You already know this likely, but please continue to do so.
00:42:44
I've included a slide for resources and further learning.
00:42:49
I have way more resources than this if you're interested.
00:42:53
And then finally, I've also included a template for writing to your city councillor or MP, which could be useful if you just wanted to shoot a quick e-mail.
00:43:04
And so I want to leave you with something that I wrote last minute, like 3 hours ago.
00:43:12
Femicide is not fate, it is policy.
00:43:16
Every act of prevention is a choice to end a history of harm and to build a future where survival is no longer the measure, or no longer needs to be the measure of our resilience.
00:43:28
Thank you for listening.
00:43:30
I think that's a perfect place to end.
00:43:33
You've been so gracious and thoughtful and generous with your time and answers.
00:43:38
How to build a trust is also a big question for tomorrow and as we enter tomorrow.
00:43:43
So I think that's a good place to stop and pause and think.
00:43:48
If you will help me, join me in giving a warm round of applause, Esther.
00:43:55
for an exceptional presentation, for tireless advocacy, leadership, and work.
00:44:01
We're grateful to you.
00:44:03
Really great examples, I think, of socially impactful work that each of us should be inspired to do if we are moved to do it, and if not, to work in allyship in delivering those changes.
00:44:15
Thank you so much, Sarah.
00:44:16
Thank you.