Photo by Vince Fedoroff
RECLAIMING THE NIGHT – The participants in Thursday evening’s Take Back the Night march walked from the Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre to the Andrew Philipsen Law Centre.
Annual campaign to end violence begins
Today marks the start of this year’s 16 Days to End Gender-Based Violence campaign.
Today marks the start of this year’s 16 Days to End Gender-Based Violence campaign.
The international campaign is aimed at ending violence against individuals based on their gender identity, gender expression or perceived gender.
The campaign began with Thursday evening’s Take Back the Night March. There was sign-making, chili and hot chocolate at the Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre.
“Gender-based violence is complex, but it is not unsolvable,” said Sofia Ashley, the centre’s executive director.
“Violence has only gotten worse throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With the announcement of the National Action Plan to End Gender Based Violence, the time to act to end violence in our communities is now. The solutions are there – now is the time to implement them.”
“Women’s groups have long been advocating for solutions,” added Laurence Rivard, the executive director of Les EssentiElles.
“Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre, Les EssentiElles, Yukon Status of Women Council and Queer Yukon have created 16 Calls to Action for our community for this campaign – to serve as a report card of our progress over the coming years.”
Gender-based violence touches and intertwines with dozens of parallel and connected issues. Those include housing, income inequality, addictions, racism and discrimination, mental health and trauma, the justice system and more.
“When we understand how these issues contribute to gender-based violence, we can see how tackling each one can contribute to our goal of a violence free community,” the groups said in a state- ment Wednesday.
The theme for this year’s campaign is “Each of us Together” – a reminder that it takes each of us, tackling a wide range of interconnected issues to end gender-based violence.
A series of events will take place over the 16-day campaign to increase understanding of gender-based violence and the road to ending it.
For details, visit https://www.endviolenceyukon.com or follow us on Facebook at VFWCYT, or Yukonelles, and on Instagram at @consent_crew and @yukonelles
The Yukon, like all three territories, has higher rates of gender-based violence compared to southern Canada.
“The pandemic has had a profound impact on Yukon women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks,” the statement said.
“Because care-work is very gendered, many pre-existing gender inequities were accelerated due to COVID – to the extent that some think women have been set back decades in terms of gender equality.”
In the Yukon, daycares and schools closed during lockdown, the groups pointed out, “and women were expected to provide unpaid care for their children and families, preventing them from earning money for themselves.
“People in situations of intimate partner violence were forced to lockdown with abusive partners.”
As well, the closure of the Many Rivers Society in late 2019 – the Yukon’s only public counselling provider – meant the territory was stripped of essential mental health care services, the groups noted.
The Yukon’s housing and opioid crises are gendered, they added.
“The data show that Yukon women, but especially Indigenous women, are being hurt and killed by Yukon’s lack of affordable housing and Yukon’s tainted drug supply more than anyone else.
“We do not have data specific to the 2SLGTBQQIA+ community, but we know from research that they are disproportionately impacted by these crises as well.”
Meanwhile, there is a marked absence of reliable data used to inform adequate gender-based violence responses, the groups said.
Many Yukon communities lack basic response infrastructure, such as women’s shelters.
“Meanwhile, existing organizations are strapped with increased demand and no core funding to offer competitive salaries and meet the increasing community demand.”
On Nov. 9, the federal government announced the launch of the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, with a promise to transfer millions of dollars to the provinces and territories.
The plan is informed by over 10 years of work from women’s groups across Canada and calls to action.
“It is time now to implement,” the Yukon groups said.
“It is time to share power with the community organizations who have been leading this charge for decades.
“It is time to create community solutions, in partnership and to properly fund gender-based violence organizations to do this work,” they added.
“We deserve better. Our communities cannot thrive until they are safe for all. Gender-based violence is complex, but not unsolvable.
“The solutions are in reach. Each of us together can create the change we want to see.”
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Comments (13)
Up 3 Down 0
SIGH... is this useful? on Dec 1, 2022 at 1:41 pm
Government giving money to a women NGO - each year (and for decades) to create a campaign against violence... well well well; money well spent?
Women organisation became LGBTQ2S+whatheheck under the pressure of gov giving money for women AND LGBTQ organizations.
(By the way what tell me the commonalities in problematics when it comes to women issues, gender identity and sexual orientation?????)
And what are the real results of those campaigns?
Awwww yes awareness.... well, victims are already aware of issues and abusers don't give a f*** about the little annual campaign...
BUT government is happy, they did their part hey! They gave a couple of $$$$ to the cause!
SIGH, stupid world!
Up 17 Down 2
Anie on Nov 29, 2022 at 4:34 pm
Surely future generations will laugh at our always changing alphabet soup descriptor of victims "2SLGBTQQIA". How the heck can the rest of us be victimizing that group when we cannot even figure out what that mumbo jumbo stands for? Do none of us have the courage to say out loud that this is just silly?
Up 20 Down 3
Femme Fatale - The psychological wastelands of emotional dysregulation on Nov 28, 2022 at 5:09 pm
In response to iBrian on Nov 28, 2022 at 7:41 am:
You are absolutely correct about the government. It uses and creates toxic environments to destabilize the civil service so it can be more easily manipulated to conform to a political ideology. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Yukon.
At this time the public service has swung towards the female privilege/female toxicity of rumour, gossip, and reputation destruction - Female violence is psychological violence.
Up 22 Down 2
Salt on Nov 28, 2022 at 9:24 am
Our body politic mainly consists of an amalgam of cults.
Up 24 Down 2
iBrian on Nov 28, 2022 at 7:41 am
@The Other Dave on Nov 25, 2022 at 4:02 pm
We just had a Harassment and Discrimination workshop at our office. Trust me when I tell you, the Government wants you to be a victim. Then you need them.
In my life experience, when I am being harassed I tend to escalate it to retaliatory mild violence. And you know, once you do that, people tend to leave you alone. And I’m not the victim, I turned the table. That’s how I took control.
Up 8 Down 3
Smackadapeepee on Nov 27, 2022 at 9:27 pm
To @Janis on Nov 26, 2022 at 9:48 pm:
You are correct but my friend Janice still said it!
Up 33 Down 4
John on Nov 27, 2022 at 11:54 am
I must say the comments both from Dave and Janice are spot on.
I can only reiterate that we need to stop "all" violence. Violence is not just confined to physical but of course psychological as well. Equally the target is the victim no matter who it is.
I take umbrage with selective judgment about "who is the target for this message that is given". It is clear that the target is the male gender. Just a tad disingenuous don't you think, and I would hypocritical.
It is obvious that the only reason there is traction is due to the federal and territorial grants to groups that promote this kind of negativism towards men.
I tire of this secularism and all that it promotes. I repeat, make it inclusive of all peoples - unless you truly feel and believe some peoples are more important than others.
Up 23 Down 2
Paradox on Nov 27, 2022 at 10:55 am
Who are the biggest victims? We are! But on the other hand we’re strong and powerful too! So how are we so strong and powerful while still somehow portraying ourselves as victims?
Up 10 Down 3
@Janis on Nov 26, 2022 at 9:48 pm
Kris Kristofferson wrote it.
Up 29 Down 3
Not queer but questioning on Nov 26, 2022 at 9:47 pm
“The pandemic has had a profound impact on Yukon women and 2SLGBTQQIA+ folks“
What does that even mean? Time to read over the free for all comment section and asking for some parity between the Star’s coverage and the sentiment of 99% of its readers, or, at least, the ones who bother to post comments. My pronoun is accountability.
Up 31 Down 7
Juniper Jackson on Nov 25, 2022 at 6:22 pm
Does anyone really expect anything to come of this?
Up 40 Down 15
Janice said, freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose… Justin says you will own nothing… Hmmm? on Nov 25, 2022 at 4:36 pm
Hmmm… Young males are most often the victims of violence. I do not see one individual who appears to be male in the accompanying picture.
All males are treated as dispensable subjects for the purpose of violence as perpetrators in defence of the public through war or as objects to be vilified in a war by society against men as pathology.
Stop all violence! Whether it is the unmitigated violence of classism as done by the L-NDP Alliance or by Trudeau’s cavalier use of the EMA… And Silver’s too… Make no mistake - Their behaviours are forms of political violence.
After all, men are nothing more than misogynistic construction workers with deplorable ideas. And now they want your firearms while the criminal elements are left unimpeded to raze civil society into oblivion.
Are you trucking serious?
Up 47 Down 5
The Other Dave on Nov 25, 2022 at 4:02 pm
With all these different victims around it’s getting pretty hard to keep up with them. All the different groups are constantly trying to out victim each other throughout the year so it just ends up blending into constant non stop background noise that no one pays attention to anymore and mostly just tunes out. Victimism is big business these days and I’ll bet you’d find a lot of the same people involved in these different events throughout the year.