“It is absolutely an uptick’: 5 Femicides in 5 weeks generates calls for urgent government action

With resources stretched to their limit and five possible femicides in the last five weeks, organizations working with women are calling on the Quebec government for more support and urgent action, saying the government has an obligation to prevent, protect and respond to gender-based violence.

“We have seen an increase in gender based violence and in the rate of femicides, women being killed by partners or former partners,” said Anuradha Dugal, Executive Director at Women’s Shelters Canada.

“The reality is because of the housing crisis, there are bottlenecks in shelters, so normally a woman might stay for a few weeks or maybe a few months, the stays are getting longer and longer, they’re no longer really emergency shelters,” she went on to explain.

These bottlenecks are causing long waitlists, and according to the Fédération des Maisons d’Hébergement pour Femmes (FMHF), 12,000 requests for shelter have been denied due to a lack of space.

Normally, the average stay at primary emergency shelters averages between a few weeks to a few months, but Dugal says that with the 200 per cent increase in demand since COVID, the average stay at shelters has gone up to an average of six months to even a year in some cases.

Demand for secondary social housing hasn’t gone down either, leaving between 12 to 25 per cent of women with nowhere to go after their stay at a temporary shelter, according to Dugal.

“We just recently finished our general assembly and we had all of our statistics, and we found that a sizable number of women that were in a shelter would go back to their abusive relationship — I think it was 16 per cent this year,” concurred Melpa Kamateros, Executive Director and Founding Member at Shield of Athena Family Services, that offers emergency shelter services in Montreal.

But the lack of investments in primary and secondary shelters isn’t the only factor putting victims of violence at risk – it’s also the lack of funding to external services, which the FMHF says they had 40,000 external requests that had to be sent to member houses.

“Investing heavily in follow-up care is essential because women need to know that they don’t just have to live in a shelter to get help,” said Nathalie Trottier, speaker and survivor of domestic violence, who attests that she survived 25 years of abuse from the support she received after leaving an emergency shelter.

Organizations are also asking for long-term government investments in training police and family members to identify the warning signs of abuse to work on preventing the violence in the first place.

“I think it’s essential that the police services and the legal services in Quebec have increased funding and training to recognize red flags,” said Dugal.

“Loved ones are the best safety net; they need to be made aware and understand the dynamics, to recognize the red flags and understand why they stay,” concurred Trottier.

In order to help alleviate the high demand for resources, Trottier now spends her time offering conferences and a training webinar on her website in order to educate family and friends on how to help those around them, often suffering in silence.

“I always speak to the victims and if there should be a victim listening, if they see this excerpt, I want to assure them that help is there — never mind if we don’t have the space, we’ll double you up, we’ll take your children in and do not hesitate, do not put your lives in danger,” explained Kamaretos.

If you need help, reach out. Call the SOS violence conjugale 24/7 at 1-800-363-9010. If you fear you may become violent towards your partner, call PRO-GAM for an appointment at 514-270-8462.