The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day.
The campaign was started by activists at the inauguration of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991. It is used as an organizing strategy by individuals and organizations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.
—UN Women
2023 Campaign: Recommendations for Local Actions
On September 25, 2023, following a joint deputation by TBDCCEWA and IDVC, Thunder Bay City Council declared Intimate Partner Violence and Gender-Based Violence an epidemic. Our request was supported by the City’s Community Safety and Well-Being Advisory Committee, and our goal was to have City Council recognize that gender-based violence is widespread and requires urgent attention across all jurisdictions with an integrated response to local missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people.
City officials have also invited us to present to the local social services administration board and the Intergovernmental Affairs committee, and also supply a list of actionable goals for City Council to better support survivors of GBV in our community.
For 2023, our 16 Days campaign is focused on these actionable goals–efforts at the municipal and personal levels to address gender-based violence. Explore the PDF below. All resource links shared in the document are clickable. If you’re having trouble viewing the document, click here.
2022 Campaign: CWK Inquest Jury Recommendations
This year, the NOWC and many other feminist groups across the province will focus on promoting the 86 jury recommendations from the recent Renfrew inquest into the murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam. We will bring some of them forward during the 16 Days of Activism because they directly reflect the work we have been doing for many years and speak to the reality of women who face the risk of gender-based violence (GBV), intimate partner violence (IPV) or femicide.
Why does this advocacy matter?
From the Culleton, Kuzyk & Warmerdam (CKW) Inquest advocacy toolkit (Luke’s Place, October 2022):
Inquest jury recommendations are non-binding, which means the government and other entities to which recommendations are directed have no legal obligation to implement them. To date (October 2022), the provincial government has not responded to the inquest recommendations in any way. While, of course, there may be work going on behind the scenes, the history of femicide inquests in Canada has taught us that governments do not move quickly to provide a meaningful response. Since 2015, the year of the Renfrew County triple homicide, at least 273 women have been killed in acts of femicide.
As the reports of the DVDRC tell us again and again, the vast majority of domestic homicides are both predictable and preventable. Implementation of the 86 recommendations produced by the jury in this most recent inquest would move us well along the right path to significantly reducing the number of women and children killed in this province. We need to provide the leadership to ensure that these recommendations, which have the potential to save many lives, will be implemented.
Explore the PDF below. All resource links shared in the document are clickable. If you’re having trouble viewing the document, click here.