Gender-Based Violence Resource Centre

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What is Gender-Based Violence?

Gender-based violence (GBV) is violence that is committed against someone based on their gender, gender identity, gender expression or perceived gender. GBV is experienced around the globe and is one of the most prevalent and normalized human rights abuses.

Gender-based violence isn’t just physical. It can be any word, action, or attempt to degrade, control, humiliate, intimidate, coerce, deprive, threaten, or harm someone. It is intended to control and harm the individual; and it takes many forms: physical, sexual, cyber, societal, psychological, emotional, and economic.

Most Gender-Based Violence is perpetrated by men against women, known as Violence Against Women (VAW).

What is Violence Against Women? (UN Definition)

Violence against women (VAW) is defined by the UN as “any act of GBV that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

The UN Definition of VAW includes coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Coercion is the act of forcing and manipulating someone to do something against their will. Arbitrary deprivation of liberty, in this definition alludes to a power imbalance that occurs when the abuse translates as a loss of freedom for women and girls. It specifically highlights how VAW is a violation of women’s rights and fundamental freedoms.

It is a public health issue that affects all levels of life.

Some types of Gender-Based Violence are:

  • Intimate Partner Violence
  • Femicide
  • Sexual Violence
  • Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Girls/2Spirit
  • Human Trafficking
  • Forced/Child Marriage
  • Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
  • Wartime Sexual Violence

What is Coercive Control?

Coercive Control is an ongoing pattern of domination where abusive partners engage in repeated psychological and emotional violence while using intimidation, deprivation, degradation, isolation and humiliation. 

It is an insidious form of violence that is constant, repetitive, deceitful, and aims to break a person down from the inside. It is overwhelmingly perpetuated by men against women. 

Coercive Control can include cycles of physical and sexual violence, but not always. However, whether physical violence is present or not, the constant threat of experiencing that violence is enough to maintain control over the survivor and their children or loved ones.

Coercive Control can be broken down into two categories:

Coercive Behaviour Controlling Behaviour
  • Physical/sexual violence, 
  • Threats, 
  • Intimidation, 
  • Humiliation, 
  • Gaslighting, 
  • Stalking, and more
  • Isolation, 
  • Financial control, 
  • Tech surveillance, 
  • Micromanagement of everyday household tasks, and more

Some examples of Coercive Control:

  • Controlling –
    • aspects of someone’s everyday life – where they can go, who they can see, what to wear, what they can eat, and when they can sleep 
  • Gaslighting –
    • making a person question their reality/ sanity by distorting the truth in order to confuse a victim and make them question their memory or perceptions
  • Isolation –
    • controlling when to talk to friends and family 
  • Withholding –
    • withholding money and deprivation of basic needs (food, healthcare, etc.) 
  • Threats –
    • threatening the person’s children, family members and/or pets, threatening to share pictures and videos of survivors during sex trafficking situations
  • Criminalization –
    • using the justice system to continue the abuse – filing frivolous claims, making false reports to child welfare authorities, claiming harassment, claiming sole custody, prolonging divorce, etc.

Coercive Control is a challenge to identify because it is often a long pattern of abuse – emotional, psychological, financial, and physical – and when viewed in isolation, some of the behaviours may simply look like a “bad marriage” to an outsider. Coercive Control is extremely damaging and can be deadly.

Coercive Control and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

In Canada, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is often viewed as a single physical event in isolation. It does not portray an accurate picture of this extremely damaging type of abuse that is difficult to “see” and a challenge to identify without training. This oversight is dangerous because Coercive Control is extremely damaging and can be deadly.


In cases of sex trafficking, which is deeply connected to IPV, coercive control is a tool employed by traffickers to entrap their victims in a never-ending cycle of abuse and exploitation.

Coercive control is still not fully understood by many frontline workers and those working in the criminal justice system, resulting in survivors not receiving the support they need. This may also result in many survivors returning to their traffickers or abusers, or being re-exploited by others.

“I couldn’t even laugh at a joke without looking at him first to see if he was laughing, too. I was just a shell. Everything I had become was completely dictated by him. My clothes, my words, my likes and dislikes. There was physical violence sometimes, but it was the psychological control and the fear of experiencing violence that kept me in his prison.”
Survivor of Domestic Violence and Coercive Control in Toronto

What is Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Violence?

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is one of the most common forms of gender-based violence. It is any physical, sexual, and emotional abuse (including Coercive Control) by an intimate partner. IPV occurs in all settings and among all socio-economic,religious and cultural groups. When the partners live together, it is known as Domestic Violence.

IPV is often extremely traumatic for survivors and can affect their lives in many negative ways and the lives of those around them. 

 The overwhelming global burden of violence is borne by women. In Canada, the majority of Domestic Violence victims are women.

Some types of Intimate Partner Violence:

  • Physical Violence – beating, biting, choking, use of weapons, etc. 
  • Sexual Violence – including Marital Rape
  • Emotional and Verbal – insults, humiliation, name-calling
  • Psychological – Coercive Control: manipulation, threats, gaslighting, harming other family members/animals, neglect
  • Stalking/Cyberstalking
  • Financial Abuse
  • Femicide

What is Family Violence?​

Family Violence is considered to be any form of abuse, mistreatment or neglect that a child or adult experiences from a family member, or from someone with whom they have an intimate relationship. 

It includes any physical, sexual, psychological, or emotional abuse. Family Violence may include a single act of violence, but is often a number of acts that form a pattern of abuse – also known as coercive control.

In Canada, the majority of police-reported family violence victims are female. 

Family Violence includes:

  • Intimate Partner Violence/Domestic Violence
  • Child Abuse
  • Elder Abuse

What is Sexual Violence?

In Canada the broad definition of Sexual Violence combines both Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment. This includes any sexual violence committed by an intimate partner, ex-partner, or even by a spouse. 

Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault includes all unwanted sexual activity, such as kissing, fondling, sexual grabbing, and rape. It is any sexual contact or activity with anyone without consent and includes forcing someone to commit unsafe or humiliating sexual acts. 

The Canadian Criminal Code defines sexual assault as “any unwanted sexual act done by one person to another or sexual activity without one person’s consent or voluntary agreement.”

Sexual Violence can include these acts and more: 

  • Sexual degradation and humiliation
  • Sexual assault, including rape
  • Coercion/forcing participation in sexual acts with others
  • Coercion/forcing viewing of pornography
  • Coercion/forcing drug use in sexual acts
  • Unwanted filming/photo taking of sexual acts

Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, unwanted touch, requests for sexual favours, and other verbal and physical forms of harassment. 

The Canadian Criminal Code defines Sexual Harassment as “any conduct, comment, gesture, or contact of a sexual nature that is likely to cause offence or humiliation to any person.” 

Sexual Harassment can include these acts and more: 

  • Cat-calling
  • Stalking
  • Demanding hugs
  • Unwanted touching, sexual looks or gestures
  • Unwanted pressure for sexual favours or dates
  • Telling sexual jokes or stories

Sexual Violence is deliberately carried out against a person’s will. It is meant to show power and domination. It is made possible by harmful gender norms and unequal power relationships. Most sexual violence is committed by men against women, girls and gender-diverse peoples.

What is Marital Rape?

Marital Rape is any unwanted sexual act or activity, including nonconsensual sexual acts committed by a partner or ex-partner with whom the survivor is, or has been, living within a partnership that is recognized by law. This could be a marriage, cultural partnership, common-law partnership or other legal partnership. Marital Rape is an example of Intimate Partner Violence and Domestic Violence. 

Consent is needed for all sexual acts, even in intimate partnerships -it doesn’t matter whether it’s your first date or you’ve been married 20 years – consent is always needed. Rape within a marriage or an intimate partnership is still rape. 

Rape and sexual violence within a marriage or intimate partnership can include these acts and more:

  • Sexual degradation 
  • Sexual assault, including rape 
  • Coercion/forcing participation in sexual acts with others 
  • Coercion/forcing drug use in sexual acts 
  • Unwanted filming/photo taking of sexual acts 

Before 1983, in Canada, it was legal for a man to rape his wife without criminal penalty. This is reflective of the fact that Canada’s laws were (and still are) formed upon deeply embedded gender norms such as viewing women as property of the husband in a marriage. 

Although marital rape is illegal in Canada, many Canadian laws are still sexist and discriminatory against women.

What is Femicide?

Femicide is the killing of a woman or girl because of their sex or gender, mostly by men, who are driven by misogyny and a need to maintain power and control over their victims. It is deeply connected to gender inequality, patriarchy and colonialism, and entrenched beliefs of the roles of women and men.

It is the most violent manifestation of misogyny against women and girls – it is the ultimate control of women and girls to dictate their fate, and ultimately, their death. 

Femicide is recognized worldwide as a distinct form of killing that warrants its own label and its own examination for effective prevention. However, the Canadian government has still not officially recognized the term “femicide” in any legislation. Yet femicide is real, and it is happening in Canada. 

Every two days in Canada a woman or girl is killed violently, most often by a man, because she is a woman.

In most cases of femicide, there are multiple indicators present, which help us better understand the nature of femicide, and also help prevent it. In Canada, 84% of the killings of women and girls by a male accused involved at least one indicator of femicide.

It is important to recognize that these killings, which are often inaccurately described as private violence, are intricately linked to public violence against women and girls and the ongoing issue of male violence against women.

Some common indicators of femicide:

  • Misogynistic beliefs of the perpetrator – hatred toward women, sexism, seeing women as property of men/inferior/submissive, etc.
  • Recent separation of the woman from her partner
  • Prior violence (this is not always physical and not always reported)
  • Coercive-Controlling behaviours of the perpetrator
  • Victim being exploited illegally
  • Sexual violence committed before the femicide
  • Overkill – perpetrator used excessive violence, mutilation, torture
  • Body disposed in a public place

To learn more about Femicide and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, explore our Femicide Knowledge Hub, accessible below.

Femicide knowledge hub

Discover our knowledge hub on femicide and MMIWG in Canada.
Explore the Femicide Knowledge Hub

What is Child Marriage?

Child Marriage is the marriage of anyone age 18, according to the United Nations, with girls being the most affected. 

The reasons for the age limit of 18 are many. 

Child brides are not physically or emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Child marriage poorly affects health and economic outcomes for girls globally. It is also recognized as a form of human trafficking. 

Canada’s International Response to Child Marriage

Canada continues to be one of the top funders of international projects and initiatives addressing child marriage in the Global South. Yet, child marriage is, in fact, legal in Canada. 

Canada’s Federal Civil Marriage Act sets the minimum age for marriage at 16. Provinces, which administer the licensing, require parental consent or a court order for people younger than 18. And parents can sign for children to be taken out of Canada to be married in other countries.

Child Marriage in Canada

  • According to Alissa Koski’s research at McGill University, Canadian provinces have issued 3,382+ marriage licenses to children since the year 2000. This excludes common-law unions and cases where children were taken out of Canada for marriages. 

The vast majority of the children are girls, who marry younger than boys to substantially older men. 

The South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario reported 219 forced marriage cases in Ontario and Quebec between 2010 and 2012, with the majority of the children married being female. 

The same report revealed that 35% of those married were under 18, which would constitute not only forced marriage, but child marriage.

What is Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence?

According to UN Women, Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) is an act that is committed or amplified using digital tools or technologies causing physical, sexual, psychological, social, political, or economic harm to women and girls because of their gender.

TFGBV is a form of gender-based violence against women and girls.

Traffickers and abusers may use technology to easily gain personal information to exploit their victims, lure and groom, locate survivors of abuse, and, in some cases, inflict further harm offline.

Most (82%) victims of online luring were youth (aged 12 to 17 years) and, of these, 84% were girls.

Due to the nature of coercive control, shame, stigma, and fear, in many cases, youth are less likely to tell anyone about their experiences online and some youth do not know where to seek help and support. So by understanding how to navigate the internet safely, we can ensure the web remains a great place to be.

Check out Aura Freedom’s Human Trafficking Information Hub to learn about Internet Safety, General Red Flags, How to be Safe Online, and additional resources.

Some types of TFGBV:

  • Sextortion: blackmail by threatening to publish sexual information, photos or videos
  • Image-Based Abuse: sharing intimate photos without consent
  • Doxing: publishing private personal information
  • Cyberbullying
  • Online gender and sexual harassment
  • Cyberstalking
  • Online grooming for sexual assault
  • Hacking, and much more.

(Source: United Nations Population Fund, “Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: A Growing Threat)