Padaviya

Today is the 22nd anniversary of the day 14 women were murdered at l’Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal just for being women. [and 14 other women were injured]

It is also the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, which recognizes the 14 women killed in Montreal in 1989 as well as all women who were murdered or experienced gender-based violence.

On Dec. 6, 1989, a gunman entered L’Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, segregating the female students from the male students and began firing at the female engineering students.

On that day, 14 young women lost their lives to violence. The event has become known as the Montreal Massacre and is symbolic of the fight to end violence against women. In 1991, Canada’s Parliament declared December 6 a National Day of Mourning and the National Day to End Violence Against Women.

The facts:

Violence against women and girls continues to be a serious issue in Canada:

• In 2008, 146 females were murdered in Canada. Forty-five of these women were victims of spousal homicide. On average, 178 females were killed every year between 1994 and 2008;
• It is estimated that 60% of Canadian women and girls have suffered from physical or psychological violence at some time in their life;
• Between April 1, 2007 and March 31, 2008, approximately 101,000 women and children were admitted to 569 shelters in Canada;
• According to the 2004 General Social Survey, Aboriginal women 15 years and older are three and a half times more likely to experience violence than non-Aboriginal women. The Native Women’s Association of Canada has documented evidence that 582 Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or have been murdered in Canada in the past few decades; and
• Annual costs of intimate partner violence is calculated at US$1.16 billion in Canada according to UNIFEM in its report The Facts: Violence Against Women & Millennium Development Goals.