The Learning Network in partnership with the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative with Vulnerable Populations (CDHPIVP) is honoured to amplify the voices of survivors and share their advice to those who are experiencing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Each piece of advice is directly informed by what survivors shared, and quotes from survivors are included here.

Advice from Survivors to Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

1. You’re not alone – reach out for support.
2. Listen to yourself! Pay attention to red flags and how you feel.
3. Document: Write it down, take pictures and screenshots, create a timeline.
4. Make a safety plan for yourself, your children, and your pets.
5. Give yourself time to heal and love yourself!

Read the backgrounder: “There’s a way out”: Insights from Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence

Sophia Sahrane, DAWN Canada’s Project Coordinator for its Rooting Resilience: Peer-support for women with disabilities in Canada project, leads this presentation focused on gender-based violence through a disability and intersectional lens.

Sharing the facts and realities of women with disabilities, their experiences accessing gender-based violence services, and taking part in their own healing, organizing, and advocating for their own rights. This presentation will attempt to center accessibility within the gender-based violence sector, as opposed to it being just a footnote.

Watch the Facebook Live: More Than a Footnote: Disability and Gender-Based Violence 

This presentation provided an overview of pop culture and the media’s continuation and perpetuation of sexual violence, highlighting the interrelationship of anti-black racism, colorism, fatphobia, and disability. This resource spotlight is presented by Monica Samuel, the Executive Director of Black Women in Motion, a Toronto-based, youth-led organization that empowers and supports the advancement of black womxn and survivors of sexual violence. 

“Black womxn have endured the unfathomable and yet, we are still here. We are poignant, prolific, and radiant. We draw our strength from our blackness and ancestry to fight oppression and injustice, while educating others, so that they can do the same. It is my duty as a black womxn, to ensure the well-being, prosperity and advancement of my community.”

Watch the Resource Spotlight: Gender-Based Violence Through an Intersectional Lens

Since 1990, OAITH has been tracking Ontario femicides through media reporting and working to ensure we remember the lives lost, bring attention to the violence women experience, and take action to bring our list to zero. Since 1990, they are aware of over 900 women, girls and gender-diverse individuals who have lost their lives to men’s violence. Every year, OAITH releases their Annual Femicide List based on media reporting of women murdered by men in Ontario. In Partnership with: Our work on femicide reporting is done in partnership with Dr. Mavis Morton, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph and Emma Kelly, Master's Candidate, Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy, University of Guelph.

Click here to learn more about OAITH's work on femicide: We Count Femicide Because...

Dr. JoLee Sasakamoose discusses how the Cultural Responsiveness Framework was developed, why it is needed to help restore Indigenous wellness in Western society, and its implementation in various projects. Dr. Sasakamoose is the Research Director of Wellness Wheel, responsible for leading the Research Team in supporting Traditional ways of knowing alongside Western approaches to wellbeing. In this webinar, she highlights the importance of shifting from deficit to strengths-based trauma-informed practice.

JoLee is a proud Anishinabe (Ojibwe) with membership in M’Chigeeng First Nation in Ontario, an active citizen of Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, and an Associate Professor in Educational Psychology and Counselling at the University of Regina where she teaches Group Counselling, Counselling Girls and Women, Counselling Children and Youth, Indigenous Family Therapies, and Decolonizing Research Methodologies. 

Watch the Webinar: Finding a Better Way: Strengths-Based Trauma-Informed Practice

Where matters of justice and fairness are concerned, gender equality and equity are distinct but related. Obstacles to full gender equality are often shaped by social systems that impact people’s “life chances” in different ways. At the same time, gender equity provides a lens for examining and addressing these obstacles to gender equality.

Learn More: Issue 30: Gender Equity

There are many Canadian projects and programs that work to engage men and boys to help reduce and prevent gender-based violence and address masculinity. This Webinar presented two existing programs within Ontario around involved fatherhood and men who have used violence: 

The Caring Dads curriculum works with fathers to change patterns of abuse, increase fathers’ awareness and application of child-centered fathering, and to promote respectful co-parenting with children’s mothers. The program was specifically designed from the premise that violence against women and violence against children are intricately intertwined, and that these two issues both can and should be addressed together.

The Punjabi Community Health Services began in 1990 as a community development project and it offers culturally relevant services and supports to youth and their families in the areas of mental health, cultural conflict, domestic violence, and substance abuse.

Watch the Webinar: Engaging Men to Reduce and Prevent Gender-Based Violence

This Backgrounder seeks to contribute to the broader understanding of anti-Asian racism and gender-based violence in Canada. It examines the unique experiences of violence and harassment faced by Asian women, the historical background of anti-Asian racism in Canada, contemporary manifestations of anti-Asian racism and gender-based violence, and harmful impacts of criminal and immigration law which disproportionately affect Asian women in the service and sex industries.

The Backgrounder also offers considerations for standing in solidarity with Asian women; supporting them in their resistance against violence, harassment, racism, and sexism; and joining continued efforts to end anti-Asian racism and gender-based violence.

Learn More: Examining the Intersections of Anti-Asian Racism and Gender-Based Violence in Canada

This report embodies critical recommendations that must be integrated into the national Action Plan to address violence against Indigenous women and girls. Indigenous women are at the center of their families and communities. They need to be at the center of the National Action Plan.

Click here to read more about ONWA’s recommendations: Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls (MMIWG) | ONWA

The 2021 Statistics Canada report on police-reported violence against seniors (65-89) reveals that senior women are more likely to face family violence than senior men. This includes violence from spouses, children, siblings, and other family, like grandchildren.

In particular, senior women are 2.2 times more likely than senior men to experience spousal violence which includes violence from current and former legally married spouses and common-law partners.

View the Infographic: Senior Women Face Disproportionate Rates of Family Violence

The COVID-19 pandemic has set the course for many new norms. Tatiana Ferguson from Equity and Inclusion and founding member of the Black Queer Youth Collective reflects on how the gender-based violence sector can embrace change and adapt to new realities to be more inclusive of Queer and Trans women in Canada. In this Facebook Live she shares insights into opportunities and challenges related to telehealth and virtual support based on anecdotal evidence solicited from participants of the BQYC COVID-19 Assistance project.

Watch the Facebook Live: 5 Lessons Learned to Better Support Queer and Trans Women in Canada

This 30th anniversary Issue is in honour of the 14 women killed on December 6th, 1989 at Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique. 

We highlight how misogyny was one of the factors fueling the fatal violence against the students that day. Misogyny is typically understood as an attitude of individuals, especially those who are stigmatized as “abnormal” or “crazy” (or other similarly ableist language). However, misogyny is not only the property of certain individuals; it is a phenomenon produced out of our social and political environment.

Read the full Issue: Thirty Years After the Montréal Massacre

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is “an injury which disrupts the normal functioning of the brain. The result of such disruption may include changes in physical, cognitive and/or emotional wellbeing.” It is one of the leading causes of long-term disability.

This issue examines the prevalence of IPV-related TBI, how to recognize TBI and the barriers that complicate assistance, and resources to support women's individual and collective resilience. 

Read the Issue: Traumatic Brain Injury & Violence Against Women

Like other forms of sexual violence, understanding sexual femicide – the intentional sexual violation and killing of women and girls – is complicated by “persistent and common misconceptions [that] shape and influence” how sexual femicide is examined and defined by the broader public.

Certainly, while sexual femicide incidences and offenders can fit the conventional narrative (i.e. a serial offender; a stranger; a crime that involves both rape and murder), it is important to challenge the stereotypes and myths that this narrative supports.

Read the full Brief: Sexual Femicide

Representatives from Maggie's Toronto, SafeSpace London, and Butterfly join this online panel to discuss how the marginalization and criminalization associated with sex work impacts the health and personal safety of people in the industry. The speakers explore stigmas such as infantilization and the conflation of sex work and trafficking, emphasizing the harm that anti-sex work legislation perpetuates. 

To learn how to be an ally and help advocate for worker safety, visit: 

• Maggie's: The Toronto Sex Workers Action Project is an organization run for and by local sex workers. Their mission is to assist sex workers in their efforts to live and work with safety and dignity.
• SafeSpace London is a volunteer-run not-for-profit support centre for sex workers, allies, and women/non-binary folks in crisis located at 96 Rectory St. Their model is one of empowerment with the goal of meeting women where they are at and helping sex workers operate with safety and dignity. 
• Butterfly was formed by sex workers, social workers, legal and health professionals. It provides support to, and advocates for, the rights of Asian and migrant sex workers.

Watch the Webinar: How Law and Stigma Harm People Who Do Sex Work

More than 80 survivors across Canada shared their knowledge in interviews conducted as part of the CDHPIVP. Researchers interviewed women who had experienced IPV to learn how they managed the abuse and violence in their relationships, how they sought safety, and what advice they would give to others experiencing violence. 

Advice from Survivors to Family and Friends of Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

1. Believe her! Tell her it is not her fault.
2. Open a space to talk about what is happening.
3. Listen and respond without pressuring or judging her.
4. Offer to help while following her lead and guidance.
5. Stay with her and be patient.
6. Find organizations in your community who support people experiencing violence and seek their advice.

Read the backgrounder: “Stay With Them”: Insights from Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence Share Insights on How Friends and Family Can Help