‘Clearly identifiable signs’: Quebec report highlights domestic violence risk factors

A Quebec committee that examines domestic violence deaths has found that many victims aren’t accessing the help they need even if the signs of violence are clear.

The Comité d’examen des décès liés à la violence conjugale, which is associated with the Quebec coroner’s office, examined 16 fatal domestic violence cases that took place between 2018 and 2022, resulting in 24 deaths.

The report published today found that there are clearly identifiable risk factors that recur in the deaths, including prior instances of domestic violence, a recent or imminent separation, and a loss of control by the aggressor over the victim.

The 32 recommendations include more awareness around these risk factors, which include the set of controlling behaviours known as coercive control.

“The risk factors that they cited that were present in more or less all of the cases were the ones that we know already – previous incidence of violence, if there’s a previous history of physical of other of other types of violence – if there’s an issue called coercive control, which even though it might not be episodes of physical violence, they are episodes of manipulation within an intimate partner relationship, which might lead to aggravated incidence of violence, including femnicide,” said Melpa Kamateros, Executive Director & Founding Member, Shield of Athena Family Services.

Other recommendations by the committee focused on gun control, promoting resources for people who need to move away from an abusive partner and extending more support to immigrant women who face barriers in getting help.

The report found that in many cases, the victims had encountered police or health and social services workers who would have had an opportunity to intervene, although very few victims had been in touch with domestic violence groups.

“In all of the situations examined, no resources for violent spouses appear to have had the opportunity to intervene, and only three victims seem to have been linked to specialized domestic violence resources (aid and shelters), which is worrying,” the authors wrote.

The report noted that the province has taken a number of steps to address domestic violence in recent years, including better training for police and prosecutors, and more awareness around coercive control, which is “closely associated with most manifestations of domestic violence,” it said.

The authors defined coercive control as the different strategies an aggressor uses to deprive their victims of their freedom and gain control over them. Those can include violence or the threat of violence, but also depriving someone of resources, imposing various “micro-regulations” on how they act or behave, and strategies to manipulate or humiliate.

The report found that there were instances of prior domestic violence in all 16 cases studied, though not all had been reported to officials. Other recurring risk factors included a loss of control over the victim (13 cases), a separation (12 cases), an escalation of violence (11 cases), problematic drug and alcohol consumption and the victim fearing their aggressor (10 each).

“The multiplicity of these factors, their diversity, and the links between the factors themselves remind us that domestic violence manifests itself through clearly identifiable external signs,” the report read.

Ten of the deaths involved firearms, and the recommendations included more education on measures that allow guns to be taken away from potential aggressors, including a confidential tip line. No efforts had been made to remove guns from any of the perpetrators involved in the incidents listed in the report.

The report provided only basic details of the fatal cases studied, but said all the perpetrators of the domestic violence were men. The 24 deaths included 14 homicides and 10 suicides, including seven times when an aggressor killed their partner or ex-partner, then himself.

There were two instances where victims of domestic violence died by suicide, including one that occurred shortly after the victim’s aggressor was released from prison. One perpetrator died by suicide shortly after going to his former partner’s house and assaulting her, the report said.

“They’re fearful, there’s a lot fear, there’s a lot of fear of judgement, fear of their partner’s reaction,” said Tania Di Genova, Intervention worker, Centre des Femmes Solidaires & Engages.

The authors noted, however, that cases of murder-suicide are “overrepresented” in the current study because coroner’s reports are often published more quickly when the perpetrator is deceased and therefore can’t be brought to trial.

“I think that this report, like I said, it gives a good understanding, but there needs to be more and I think there needs to be a lot of action with our governments and there needs to be a collaboration between community and government organizations, even though there’s a lot of that now, there needs to be more and there needs to be a lot more sensibilization of the population,” said Di Genova.

“What I find interesting in this report is the title, the title is working together so as to save lives, and I think this indicates the willingness to on the one hand have a global vision of how everybody works in a context of conjugal violence – it isn’t only the abusers- its the factors leading to the abuse – it isn’t only the victims, it’s the lack of support for  the victims,” said Kamateros.

“The willingness is there, the intent might be there, the wish to connect the dots, so as to prevent future femnicides or murders is there, but as a society and as a system the different departments are not working in a conjoined fashion yet,” added Kamateros.