The Body Bag, For Her
In honour of the 16 Days of Activism to end Gender-Based Violence, Aura Freedom created the Body Bag For Her to call attention to the prevalence and urgency of femicide in Canada.
Drawing on traditional advertising tropes of gendered campaigns for ‘women’s products’, Aura Freedom created the Body Bag, For Her to illuminate the fact that every other day a woman is killed in Canada, most often by a man. Indigenous women are murdered at the highest rates in Canada, contributing to the genocide of Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit Peoples (MMIWG2S).
Aura Freedom created the Body Bag, For Her to show the sobering realities of femicide in Canada, and how it isn’t the same as homicide. Women are being killed by men, precisely because they are women. And these murders are completely preventable.
Femicide is an emergency in Canada, and until we treat it as such, we will continue to lose women and girls in our communities.
The campaign is a multi-media one (print, TV, social, digital, etc.) and includes an educational microsite where people can learn more about femicide and MMIWG2S. Watch the powerful campaign video here.
Explore the 'For Her' microsite on Femicide in Canada
We are grateful to our partners:
Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice & Accountability
Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto
The Canadian government has still not officially recognized the term Femicide in any legislation.
Femicide is happening in Canada. Ignoring it will not make it go away. Recognition of this most extreme form of male violence against women is the first step forward to addressing it.
We call on the Government of Canada to take the meaningful steps towards ending femicide across the country, and to declare femicide an emergency in Canada through a petition created in partnership with the Canadian Femicide Observatory and the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto.
Sign the petition for the Government of Canada to declare femicide an emergency and act accordingly.
We’re not waiting anymore.
The 'For Her' launch event in Toronto!
In honour of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and to kick off the 16 Days of Activism, we held our launch event for the ‘For Her’ campaign at It’s Ok* Studios in Toronto. This was an opportunity for the public, the media, and our community to learn more on the reality of femicide in Canada, sign our petition, connect with fellow affected and concerned community members – and see the body bag, for her, in person. Check out our recap video of our launch event here.
MEDIA WAS BUZZING. Check out the following articles on our “For Her” campaign: CTV News, NewsWire, CP24 Article, CP24 Interview, NowToronto, The Message, BNN Breaking Network, and more.
Watch our Executive Director's interview on CTV's The Social
We’re thankful for our fellow gender-based violence advocates, community partners, and Councillor Lily Cheng for coming and showing support for the For Her campaign.
All our gratitude goes to Forsman & Bodenfors Canada, Folktale Films, Veritas Communications and Cactus Sewing Studio for all their creative brilliance that is the For Her campaign. This campaign was created by a genius all-woman creative team, from the writers and graphic designers, to the film director and the project managers, and even the makers of the body bag itself. These women are all heart and every time we put our heads together during this process, it was nothing but joy. Thank you ALL for your sisterhood and siblinghood.
Women in our communities are DYING.
We’re not waiting anymore.