Declaring Gender-Based Violence an Epidemic in British Columbia (BC)
According to Statistics Canada data, in British Columbia, nearly 48% of women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence—whether physical, sexual, emotional, psychological or financial—since the age of 15. This deep-rooted prevalence of violence mobilized us at YWCA Metro Vancouver to establish a coalition of more than 30 anti-violence organizations, academic experts, business leaders, community advocates and educators, to urge BC’s government to declare gender-based violence an epidemic.
After multiple meetings, the coalition drafted a letter outlining the severity of gender-based violence in our communities and sent it to Premier David Eby and several other Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), calling on them to take bold action.
Our advocacy ramped up last fall, during the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-Based Violence, through our Close to Home Campaign. The campaign included collecting hundreds of signatures supporting our letter to the premier and bus stop ads in Vancouver showing the prevalence of sexual assaults within a 10-block radius of each ad.
“We wanted to create a way to remind people how pervasive gender-based violence is,” YWCA Metro Vancouver’s Chief Executive Officer, Erin Seeley, said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s not isolated in specific neighbourhoods, it really is across all of our communities.”
The Close to Home Campaign attracted significant media coverage, including pieces by CBC, CTV, Ming Pao, and an op-ed by our own, Erin Seeley and former MLA Katrina Chen in the Vancouver Sun.
In December, members of the YWCA team met with Premier David Eby and, in January, he publicly acknowledged gender-based violence as an epidemic in his mandate letter to our Minister of Finance, Brenda Bailey.
Looking ahead, YWCA Metro Vancouver will examine the economic impacts of gender-based violence in BC, thanks to funding from The Houssian Foundation and SPARC BC.
Throughout our campaign, we have been inspired by YWCA Toronto’s work calling on the provincial government to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. Last summer, Sami Pritchard, YWCA Toronto’s Director of Advocacy and Communications, spoke to our coalition, providing valuable insight into the advocacy work being done in Toronto and Ontario, and answering questions about how we can move forward in BC. It is encouraging to see that the advocacy and community mobilization continues in Ontario with now 100 municipalities having made their own declarations, recognizing the severity of this issue.
We are thrilled with the progress here in BC, but we know there is so much more that can be done. We are calling for the BC Coroner to conduct a review of suspected deaths resulting from gender-based violence and urging the provincial government to adopt a multi-pronged approach to prevent, track and address this violence. We are also calling for more investments in transitional and long-term housing to support women, children and gender diverse people.
As our CEO has shared, “gender-based violence needs to be at the forefront and needs a whole-of-government approach to address it,” and we will continue to advocate for exactly this.
To learn more about YWCA Metro Vancouver’s advocacy work, please contact Senior Manager of Advocacy and Government Relations Shauna Shortt at sshortt@ywcavan.org.