From YWCA Toronto:
Elections are your chance to tell political candidates what matters to you. On February 27th, we encourage you to vote to end Gender-Based Violence (GBV). We need the political will and commitment of our elected leaders to address the root causes of gender-based violence. Economic prosperity and financial independence deeply influence a person’s ability to leave a violent situation, as does one’s social identity. When governments and policymakers address gender-based violence and intimate partner violence through meaningful investments into violence prevention, early intervention, and survivor support services, they are investing in a province where women, girls, and gender diverse people are able to thrive and live lives free from violence.
Read the full report here and see YWCA’s full campaign here
Through our collective commitment and action, we can end gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. This election, let’s urge all political candidates to:
- Declare intimate partner violence an epidemic to acknowledge the public health and safety crisis.
- Establish an independent accountability mechanism to advance community-led long-term planning efforts to address and eradicate gender-based violence and to ensure leadership and accountability across parties and election cycles.
- Fund and sustain the solutions required to respond to and prevent gender-based violence.
There are decades worth of hard lessons from femicide inquests, death reviews, public commissions and national inquiries that have shown us, over and over, how to prevent these predictable deaths by prioritizing healthy relationships and listening to the voices of those most impacted. We will be better positioned to end gender-based violence when we target the root causes of the social inequities and injustices that continue to disadvantage and discriminate against whole populations. The first-hand wisdom found in those communities must help lead us.
99 local governments in Ontario have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. The province can too. This provincial election, we urge all political parties to commit to ending gender-based violence. Together, we can achieve this important and critical goal.
This campaign was created by a dedicated coalition of anti-gender-based violence advocates and survivors who have united to urge all political candidates in the Ontario election to commit to ending GBV.
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