Ending Violence Blog
Via our award winning blog Battered Women’s Support Services provides education and advocacy as we work towards the elimination of violence.
Budgets Do Not Simply Allocate Dollars. They Design Risk Environments.
For International Women’s Day, Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) as released new analysis examining how fiscal decisions shape the conditions under which survivors attempt to leave violence. Gender-based violence most often occurs in the home, yet social and...
Afghanistan’s New Taliban Penal Code and Gender Apartheid, What It Reveals About Public Safety in Canada
Image by Marius ArnesenOver the past week, a stark message has moved across feminist networks: “The Taliban has legalized domestic violence as long as bones are not broken.” Under Afghanistan’s new penal code, a husband can physically abuse his wife or children as...
Latin American Women’s Counsellor
Latin American Women’s Counsellor Full-Time Permanent | 40 hours/week Start Date: March 9th,2026Schedule: Monday–Friday, 9:00 am–5:00 pm (some evenings required)Classification: Grid 14P | Union position | Hourly Rate: $40.03Location: Vancouver, BC (in-person position)...
Family Court Reform Is Public Safety Work: What Bill C-223 Means for Survivors
A Moment of Progress and a Reminder of What Survivors Have Been Saying for Years This week, Bill C-223, the Keeping Children Safe Act, passed second reading in the House of Commons and will now move to committee for detailed study. For many Canadians, this may sound...
Police-Officer-Involved Domestic Violence
When the person causing harm carries institutional power, safety can look very different. Recent investigative reporting by CBC News, led by journalist Julie Ireton, has helped bring renewed public attention to what many survivors have been telling us for decades:...
Holding the Tumbler Ridge Community in Care
Today we are holding the Tumbler Ridge community, and the wider South Peace region, in our hearts. We are thinking of the lives lost, those who are injured and receiving care in hospital, and all who are carrying shock and grief in the wake of this violence. What has...
A Journey to Stability: How Support Can Transform Lives
Dec 2025, | Synchronicity Second Stage Transition House Program By: Zahra Hashemi At Synchronicity Second Stage Transition House Program, we see every day how tailored support, safe housing, and a caring community can transform the lives of survivors of gender-based...
Women are dying while risk is known anti-violence organizations call for public safety action on intimate partner violence – Remarks by Angela Marie MacDougall
Remarks by Angela Marie MacDougall Executive Director, Battered Women’s Support ServicesVictoria Courthouse Press Conference – attended virtually Thank you.My name is Angela Marie MacDougall, and I’m the Executive Director of Battered Women’s Support Services in...
Women are dying while risk is known anti-violence organizations call for public safety action on intimate partner violence
VICTORIA, BC — This press conference takes place on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples, known today as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. Community and anti-violence organizations from across Vancouver Island gathered today at the Victoria...
She Did Everything Right and the System Did Not.
A breach was a warning. The system treated it as paperwork. A woman in Saanich, British Columbia, Laura Gover, had a Family Law Act protection order. She had a detailed safety plan. She took extra precautions in her home, including a doorbell camera and extra locks....
A woman in Saanich, BC is dead.
A woman in Saanich, BC is dead. Public reporting shows the accused had previously breached a court order involving an intimate partner. That is not a neutral detail. It is a known risk indicator. Two years ago, BWSS released Justice or “Just a Piece of Paper?” because...
When Silence Follows Women’s Deaths: Why We Are Naming Possible Femicides in BC
Public Statement | January 11, 2026 In the first week of 2026, two women have died in separate incidents in British Columbia. Based on publicly available information, both deaths show indicators consistent with femicide and must be understood within the broader...