Women continue to be killed in this country and around the world in alarming numbers. According to a 2023 report from UN Women, 51,100 women and girls were killed by someone “closely related to them” that year. In Canada, between 2018 and 2022, there was a 27% increase in such deaths.
This reality has led to suggestions that Canada should create a distinct criminal offence of femicide, as some other countries have already done. Calls to do so have come from many sources, including feminist and violence against women advocates such as the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability.
In its 2019 report, Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee, while not recommending this specifically, urged the federal government to :
“consider possible amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada to include homicide of a domestic or intimate partner as automatic first degree murder when there is a prior conviction of domestic/intimate partner violence or a pattern of abuse with that partner in the past five years, with the exception of behaviour that constitutes self-defence.”
Recommendation 79 from Ontario’s 2022 CKW inquest called on the federal government to “explore adding the term ‘Femicide’ and its definition to the Criminal Code to be used where appropriate in the context of relevant crimes.”
During this year’s federal election campaign, the Liberal Party committed to “making murder motivated by hate a constructive first degree offence, including femicide.”
And now, federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser indicated he would be “open” to including the term femicide in the Criminal Code, possibly as part of a number of reforms he expects to present to Parliament in the fall.
But is this really going to help reduce the numbers of women being killed and who are victimized by other forms of gender-based violence?
Defining femicide
Femicide is generally understood to mean the killing of a woman or girl because of her gender. Some say the killing has to be committed by a man, but this is not universally agreed-upon. The term does not specifically address the killing of transwomen or those who identify as non-binary. It includes, but is not limited to, intimate partner killings.
For example, Toronto’s 2018 “van attack,” has been described as an act of femicide, even though men were among the victims, because the perpetrator identified himself as an “incel,” (involuntary celibate).
The word femicide is being used more frequently in many circles, especially since the CKW Inquest in Ontario. Some police forces have begun to use it when reporting on the killing of women because of their gender; most often in cases of intimate partner homicide. It is also increasingly being used by journalists who report on gender-based violence issues. This has been very helpful in raising public awareness about the unique issues associated with the killing of women.
Poor track record
Historically, the criminal law in this country has not done a great job of responding to intimate partner violence. Fewer than 40% of women who are subjected to abuse by their partners report it to the police, which indicates a low level of confidence in the criminal system’s ability to respond effectively to IPV.
Mandatory charging policies, in effect since the mid-1980s, have proven helpful to some women, but have also led to the improper criminalization of others and are a frustration for many police officers, who feel their hands are tied when they respond to a 911 call involving IPV.
Women – especially those from marginalized communities including, but not limited to racialized, Black, Indigenous and immigrant women, women with mental health or substance use issues and criminalized women – are not always believed when they report IPV to the police, with the result that charges may not be laid when they should be.
Bail is complicated when one person is prohibited from having contact with another, with whom they may share children, a home, a bank account and, more generally, a life. It’s not an easy thing for a woman to stop allowing the other parent of her children to come into the family home or come to their school concert or soccer game. Or, she may need him at home with the kids so she can go to work. No matter the abuse, she may miss him and want to spend time with him. And, of course, even if she doesn’t feel this way, he may pressure or threaten her into having contact with him.
Whatever happens through the criminal process, it is unlikely to significantly interrupt the cycle of abuse in the relationship. If the abuser’s found not guilty, he may feel he now has carte blanche to continue harming his partner. If he’s found guilty, he is likely to receive a shorter prison sentence than if he had killed a stranger. Dr. Myrna Dawson of Guelph University calls this the “intimacy discount.”
Legal systems don’t operate in silos – what happens in criminal court in an IPV case will have an (often problematic) impact on family law or child protection proceedings as well as on any immigration process that may be underway.
The criminal law system is broken when it comes to dealing with intimate partner violence. But will bringing a new offence into it be helpful or do we need a more radical rethink?
I’ll explore this next week.