Prevention of Violence against Women Week 2017

BWSS commemorates Prevention of Violence against Women Week annually. For this prevention week we are emphasizing the lethality of male’s violence against women because every 5 days a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner.

Quebec

Since the end of March, six women in Quebec have been killed. Daphné Boudreault was killed the day after she ended her relationship with her male partner.  In the small Quebec city of Shawinigan Sylvain Duquett killed three of his female relatives. Priscilla Lee Bond and her 15-year-old daughter after her common-law partner, David Lepage, turned himself in to police Monday morning.

Ontario

In the same time frame, a 27-year-old nine-month pregnant woman from Ontario was killed by her husband.

Winnipeg

In Winnipeg a woman was killed outside her home and it took the RCMP 4 days to confirm the shooting.

British Columbia

In the context of a number of reports of beatings of several women –one women who was beaten and pulled into a car in February, another woman who was held captive for several days on Vancouver Island and beaten, and just this week a woman was assaulted in Richmond by a man who had threatened her and her family –Linda Watson and her daughter Krystina Haggard were killed by Linda’s boyfriend in Moberly Lake, BC in March .

Each of these women’s stories is a reflection of the grim reality for many women in Canada. Violence against women continues to be an epidemic. But violence against women doesn’t always end in murder. For every woman who is killed there are thousands more living with serious and severe levels of violence.

After studying decades of domestic violence deaths, Battered Women’s Support Services has found that the vast majority of women who died were not connected to a community advocate. Safety changes everything.

You may have received a letter in the mail from us sharing a story about a woman, Linda, whose husband’s violence became increasingly lethal. Linda connected with BWSS services.  It is so crucial for women like Linda to have a place such as BWSS to turn to – Linda is safe today.

Prevention of Violence against Women Week is from April 16-22, 2017. Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) is committed to taking action and preventing violence against women and we know you are too. Together we can increase awareness and continue the critical violence prevention work.

Take action today!

Prevention of Violence against Women Week is a good time to make a charitable gift to Battered Women’s Support Services

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