An Urgent Call to Action: The IPV Epidemic in Toronto

AN URGENT CALL TO ACTION:
Declare Intimate Partner Violence an Epidemic in Toronto

July 6, 2023.

Aura Freedom and Women’s Habitat of Etobicoke, along with other organizations, grassroots groups, advocates, survivors, and more, are calling on the City of Toronto to declare Intimate Partner Violence an epidemic.

Yes, an epidemic.

Intimate Partner Violence affects every single aspect of life in Toronto. From housing and food security, to health, education, and the economy.

Women’s lives are, quite literally, on the line as we see a rise in femicide and hate crimes against women on public transit. Intimate Partner Violence and Violence Against Women have already been recognized as an epidemic in 30 municipalities across Ontario, following the jury recommendations resulting from the groundbreaking Renfrew County inquest into the murders of Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam.

We know that male violence against women is one of the greatest barriers to achieving a healthy and thriving city.

Bold and urgent action is needed now.

Toronto leadership, are you with us?

A Call for Organizational Endorsements

To endorse this Urgent Call to Action, email info@aurafreedom.org with your organization’s name and “Endorsement for Toronto IPV Epidemic” in the subject line and we will add it to our list of endorsements below. Please note that while organizational endorsements will be listed below, individual endorsements will be kept private.

This list is updated every 1-2 days, please check back regularly for an updated list.

  • Abrigo Centre
  • AIDS Committee of Toronto
  • Albion Neighbourhood Services
  • Anduhyaun Inc.
  • Assaulted Women’s Helpline
  • Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
  • Bethesda House
  • Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment
  • Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking
  • Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture
  • Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability
  • Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse
  • Caribbean African Canadian Social Services 
  • Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, University of Guelph
  • Community Family Services of Ontario
  • Elizabeth Fry Toronto
  • Embrave Agency to End Violence
  • End Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Network Canada
  • Ernestine’s Women’s Shelter
  • Family Service Toronto
  • FCJ Refugee Centre
  • Good To Be Good
  • LAMP Community Health Centre
  • Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto
  • Parkdale Queen West Community Health Care Centre
  • Peel Regional Council
  • Safe Hope Home
  • Safe Transitions
  • S.E.A.S. Centre
  • Settlement Assistance and Family Support Services
  • South Asian Women’s Centre
  • Stonegate Community Health Centre
  • The Child Development Institute
  • The I Do! Forced Marriage Project
  • Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape
  • Victim Services Toronto
  • White Ribbon
  • Woman Abuse Council of Toronto
  • Women At The Centre
  • Women Won’t Forget
  • Yorktown Family Services: Violence Against Women Services
  • YWCA Toronto

Relentless Resilience 2 – The Grassroots Speaks Again

Relentless Resilience 2 - The Grassroots Speaks Again

Grassroots consultations for a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence 

 

Aura Freedom’s original Relentless Resilience report highlighted numerous grassroots voices and the voices of GBV survivors. It also outlined the urgent need for a National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence.

In January 2021, the Government of Canada recognized the need for a National Action Plan, after years of advocacy from the women’s sector.

In February and March 2021 (in partnership with the Federal Government’s Office of Women and Gender Equality Canada and YWCA Canada), Aura Freedom held community consultations with grassroots gender-based violence organizations and survivors to hear more of their recommendations, suggestions and insight in regards to the National Action Plan.

Called the Community Engagement Initiative, this undertaking was “an opportunity for civil society and the Canadian government to help inform the country’s first National Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence” and “influence action on gender-based violence for decades to come.”

Aura Freedom’s goals for these grassroots community consultations were clear:

– To have grassroots voices heard and respected.

– To achieve a country free of gender-based violence.

– To present concrete recommendations to the Government of Canada that will help empower our communities and change Canada and the world as we know it.

Explore our summary report below, which can be seen as a sequel to Relentless Resilience.

Relentless Resilience 2 has arrived.

A year after the original Relentless Resilience, explore the summary report of our consultations with grassroots GBV professionals and survivors on what is needed in Canada’s National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. 

We are once again elevating community voices to high level government to end the pandemic that is gender-based violence and providing crucial insight on how the Plan must be created.

The Grassroots speaks again.

Gender-Based Violence Across the SDGs – A Beijing +25 Initiative

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AND THE SDGs

Gender-based violence is affecting every single aspect of life in Canada and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Grassroots groups have been advocating for change for a long time. We can’t wait any longer.

Gender-based violence is impacting families, communities and entire countries. While global heads of state convene to discuss struggling economies, migration, poverty, disease, and climate change, we at the grassroots level know that the eradication of gender-based violence and the empowerment of women and girls can bring increased wealth, health, peace and climate justice to our communities.

In fact, gender-based violence is destroying the world, and we can prove it.

Visit our GBV And The SDGs segment of our Relentless Resilience movement to explore the connection between gender-based violence, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and life as we know it.

Relentless Resilience – A Beijing +25 Canadian Parallel Report

Relentless Resilience - A Beijing +25 Canadian Parallel Report

The Grassroots has spoken. 

 

In February 2020, Aura Freedom submitted an official Beijing +25 Canadian Parallel Report with a focus on gender-based violence entitled ‘Relentless Resilience’.

Relentless Resilience is a report that calls for holistic change to address the root causes of gender-based violence (gender inequity, systemic racism, colonialism, ableism, trans/homophobia, capitalism, etc.) and societal power imbalances that uphold the status quo. Our guiding framework is rooted in human rights activism, grassroots excellence, trauma and, of course, resilience. Relentless Resilience aims to highlight the most marginalized women and girls in Canada and the resiliency of them in response to violence, oppression, and indifference. 

Through interviews with frontline social workers and survivor stories from grassroots organizations in the City of Toronto, Canada, our Beijing +25 Parallel Report demonstrates how gender-based violence is impacting all 12 Areas of Critical Concern of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and hindering the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Relentless Resilience can be considered a point of reference for advocacy efforts that call for the eradication of gender-based violence throughout the entire year of Beijing +25, including CSW64 and the Generation Equality Forum taking place in Mexico and France in 2020, and beyond.

Aura Freedom was accepted to present Relentless Resilience at the NGO Forum of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March 2020. Due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, this event was cancelled, but with support from various donors, Relentless Resilience went on to become a powerful multi-media campaign and movement to end gender-based violence in Canada.

Project Impact Report – The Peer Prevention Project

The Peer Prevention Project - 2020 Impact Report

In 2019 only alone, Aura Freedom’s Peer Prevention Project operated in over 36 youth spaces across Toronto with 2,000+ participants to prevent gender-based violence and exploitation in the city.

From those 36 presentations, 19 survivors of sexual exploitation, human trafficking and sexual violence came forward and were referred to crucial services. 

For more stats and more information on the power of this project, check out / download our report: Aura Freedom’s Peer Prevention Project

Camp Sisterhood – A Photographic Account of a Post-Earthquake Project, Nepal

Camp Sisterhood: A Photographic Account of a Post-Earthquake Project for Women and Girls in Nepal

Explore a stunning photographic look at Aura Freedom’s “Female Friendly Spaces”, a local intervention to prevent and address gender-based violence in post-earthquake Nepal.

View the story of Camp Sisterhood told on Exposure HERE:

Download the official report here: Camp Sisterhood-Aura Freedom Post-Earthquake

Photos by Mandy Glinsbockel, on assignment for Aura Freedom in Nepal

In partnership with Apeiron Global and funded by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives