The Centre for Human Rights with other pan-university partners is calling on the York community to make a pledge:
WHAT WILL YOU DO TO END VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN?
It's been 27 years since 14 people were killed for being women at L'Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal.
We've been asking ourselves, "How has the situation for women changed since 1989?"
In 1993, just a few years after the Montreal events, the Canadian Women's Foundation notes a Statistics Canada report: "half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16". Interestingly, they also note that Statistics Canada has not conducted a survey asking women about their life-time experience of violence since.
A 2012 Angus Reid Omnibus Survey commissioned by the Canadian Women’s Foundation tells us that "67% of Canadians say they have personally known at least one woman who has experienced physical or sexual abuse."
We know that little has changed for women in 27 years and that some women are disproportionately affected by violence due to their intersectional positioning.
This year, the Government of Canada launched an independent national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls to "examine and report on the systemic causes behind the violence that Indigenous women and girls experience, and their greater vulnerability to violence, by looking for patterns and underlying factors that explain why higher levels of violence occur... {such as} historical, social, economic, institutional and cultural factors".
To commemorate the 1989 events in Montreal, we are calling out to the York community to do their part and make a pledge to end violence against women: because our actions matter.
Make a PLEDGE today - #Actions Matter - and join us in commemorating the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women to remember and honour all the women lost to violence.
