FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 25, 2025
On the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, BWSS Declares: “16 Days Is Not Symbolic. It’s an Emergency Response.”
British Columbia faces rising femicide, systemic failures, and unprecedented demand for services as BWSS launches 16 Days of Activism. One Emergency. One Province Rising.
VANCOUVER, BC — Today, on the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) launches 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence with a clear message for British Columbia: Declarations are not enough. Action is overdue. Lives are at stake.
Around the world, November 25 marks a global call for governments to prevent, respond to, and end violence against women. This year’s UN theme, Ending Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls, highlights the national rise in tech-facilitated abuse, coercive control, digital surveillance, and online threats.
In British Columbia, the urgency is undeniable.
Gender-based violence is a public emergency in BC.
In the past 13 months, 37 women have been killed, while survivors continue to endure police failures, housing scarcity, court delays, and Crown decisions that leave them unprotected. BWSS has seen record-breaking demand across crisis lines, legal advocacy, transition housing, and safety planning, confirming what survivors already know: systems are failing to keep them safe.
In January 2025, the Province declared gender-based violence an epidemic. Yet, as BWSS details in its recent analysis, What Happened After B.C. Declared Gender-Based Violence an Epidemic?, no coordinated plan, no acknowledgement of the killings, no funding, and no emergency infrastructure followed.
Today, BWSS calls on the Province to implement Five Actions B.C. Can Take Right Now to Prevent Femicide:
- Mandate Municipal GBV Task Forces
- Stabilize Frontline Services with 15% Emergency Funding
- Standardize IPV Risk Assessment Across Systems
- Launch a Province-Wide Prevention Campaign
- Appoint a GBV Lead in the Attorney General and Public Safety ministries
“These are not aspirational ideas, these are immediate, evidence-based measures that would save women’s lives,” said BWSS Executive Director Angela Marie MacDougall.
A Province Rising: BWSS Launches the 16 Days
Throughout the 16 Days of Activism, BWSS will release daily videos and community broadcasts featuring survivors, advocates, researchers, artists, and frontline workers, a collective call for action and accountability.
Celebration of Resilience: November 25
BWSS opens the 16 Days with its annual gathering honouring survivors, community leaders, and frontline staff. The event amplifies the leadership of Black Women Connect Vancouver, partners in the Empower & Protect initiative and critical voices in the fight against anti-Black racism and gendered violence.
Too True Crime: Naming 580 Women Killed by Femicide
Today also marks the national launch of the Too True Crime podcast by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Accountability and Justice – 580 episodes, one for each woman killed in Canada since 2020, calling for femicide to be recognized in the Criminal Code. BWSS is the British Columbia representative in this national initiative
“Around the world, November 25 is a call to action. In British Columbia, it is a siren. We have declared a GBV epidemic, but without an emergency response. Survivors cannot wait for symbolic commitments. They need infrastructure, coordination, and political will. We know what will prevent femicide. The question is whether the Province will act.”
“At BWSS we see the truth every day: survivors navigating systems that were not designed with them in mind. Our work across crisis lines, housing, and courts shows a clear pattern, when governments become desensitized, then underfund, delay, and deflect, women pay with their lives. Safety is not charity, safety is infrastructure.”
“This year’s UN theme, ending digital violence, could not be more relevant. Digital coercion, non-consensual distribution of intimate images, surveillance, and online threats are now central to almost every case we see. British Columbia must respond to contemporary forms of harm with contemporary solutions. The tools exist. The leadership must follow.”
CALL TO ACTION
BWSS urges British Columbians and municipal, provincial, and federal leaders to:
- Demand the implementation of the Five Immediate Actions to Prevent Femicide
- Support survivors through donations, volunteering, and amplifying the daily 16-Days broadcasts
- Sign the national petition to recognize femicide in the Criminal Code
- Hold systems, policing, Crown Council, Family Law and Criminal Courts, and governments, accountable for the safety they promise but have not delivered
For more information www.bwss.org
