Join the global campaign against gender violence
November 25 marks the start of one of the most important
annual campaigns involving organized labour, women’s groups and social
justice movements. I’m speaking of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender
Violence.
Beginning on the 25th – the International Day Against
Violence Against Women – and ending on Dec. 10 – International Human
Rights Day – people across Canada and around the globe will host
thousands of events and commemorations to symbolically link violence
against women and human rights, and to emphasize that such violence is a
violation against human rights.
It is not lost on us that Dec. 6 falls in the middle of
the campaign, the date on which 21 years ago 14 young women, all
engineering students, were senselessly murdered on the campus of École
Polytechnique, in Montréal. (See our Provincial Women’s Committee
posting).
Nor, in mourning, do we forget the tragic loss of OPSEU
member
Adrienne Roberts, a 33-year old EMS paramedic with Local 231 in
Wellington County, who was murdered Oct. 6, leaving behind a six-month
old son. Her husband has been charged with first-degree murder.
Campaigns like the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender
Violence and Women Abuse Prevention Month, which is observed each
November, remind us that while some progress has been made, violence
against women continues unabated. Consider the following:
-
Seven per cent of women in
a common-law or marital relationship reported some either physical
or sexual abuse in the period 1999-2004;
-
Eight of 10 victims of
spousal abuse were female;
-
One in five homicides in
Canada involve the killing of an intimate partner;
-
Only one-third of spousal
assaults are reported to police;
-
In 2004, Aboriginal women
were three times more likely to experience spousal violence than
non-Aboriginal women or men, and that the rate of spousal abuse for
Aboriginal women was eight times the rate for non-Aboriginal women.
Violence and abuse against women does not happen in a
vacuum. There are a host of social and economic reasons why women suffer
from disproportionately high levels of harm, assault and injury from
partners and predators.
The safety of women is inextricably tied to factors such
as economic security, child care, housing, sustainable welfare benefits
and employment equity. As long as we fail, as a society, to provide
women with economic and social safeguards that allow them to live in
peace, dignity and security, then we can expect them to suffer greater
levels of violence than men.
I believe that the struggle to end violence against
women can be won. Progress has been achieved; attitudes and laws have
changed.
But much more needs to be accomplished. Let’s start by
acting on the goals of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence
and turn it into a relentless 365 day campaign.
In Solidarity
Patty Rout
First Vice-President / Treasurer
For more information on 16 Days of Activism Against
Gender Violence please visit:
http://16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu
|
