2024 Prioritization of the Inclusion of Femicide into Canada’s Criminal Code

BACKGROUND: Gender-related killings go beyond “ordinary” murder and often represent the final event of an extended and ignored continuum of violence, which is rooted in the unequal power relations between men and women” (UNODC, 2017). The United Nations defines femicide as the intentional gender-related killing of women and girls. The Government of Canada is a signatory to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), numerous Agreed Conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women sessions, and Recommendations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Defining femicide in the Criminal Code and recognizing femicide as a distinct offence can aid in addressing and preventing violence against women. This would also assist data collection to measure the extent of this issue since femicide is not an official term for many governments and police agencies.

In 2022 in Canada, 184 women and girls were killed—primarily by men; one woman or girl is killed every 48 hours (CWF, 2023); this is up 27% in 2022. The rate of femicide in Canada is five times higher among Indigenous than non-indigenous women and girls. Women and girls are most likely to be killed by those closest to them (UN Women, 2022). Between 2011-2021, 77% of solved homicides of women and girls by male accused were gender-related. One third or 32% of gender-related homicides of women and girls were reported by police as motivated primarily by the accused’s anger, despair, or frustration, a statistic which is almost triple that of non-gender related homicides (Cotter & Sutton, 2023)
Update

BPW Canada was encouraged to see the recognition of femicide related to an alleged act of intimate partner violence by the Ottawa Police Service on August 28, 2024 and the call to include the use of the term femicide in the Criminal Code as a gender based killing. It’s believed to be the first time a police force in Canada has used the word in the context of a murder investigation where evidence is still being gathered. (CTV News, 2024).