B.C. researchers study flaws in protections from femicide

Canadian researchers are sounding the alarm on the epidemic of femicide as a new report shows that rates in B.C. have doubled this year compared to the average rate in 2015.

The Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) says the report, Justice or ‘Just’ a Piece of Paper, set out to study how the current system of protection measures in Canada fails survivors of family violence and intimate partner violence (IPV).

Angela Marie MacDougall, the executive director of BWSS, says the study grew out of the death of Stephanie Forster who was killed in Coquitlam in 2022 after obtaining a restraining order and moving six times in three months.

Forster’s estranged ex-husband, who died days later, remains the main suspect in her murder.

“The femicide rate in British Columbia has reached critical levels,” said MacDougall. “In 2022, 24 women were killed, and that’s double the annual rate seen prior to that.”

She says the rate appears to be persisting, with the 20 killings so far in 2024.

“The killings of women and girls underscore the urgent need for systemic reform.”

MacDougall says that lockdowns for the COVID-19 pandemic created the condition for increased isolation and coercive control, with a “significant jump” in IPV.

“And that continued. It hasn’t come down, unfortunately, because I think we’re still dealing with the effects of whatever happened during that time that created this regression in whatever gender-equity gains that we thought we’d made leading up to that up to 2020. So, it means that we’ve had more killings, and the killings have been — it’s horrific. It is the extension of what so many women and girls are experiencing in their homes… For every woman that is killed, there are thousands more that are living in fear,” she said.

The BWSS offers a crisis line, support groups, counselling, legal advocacy, victim support, and an employment program. MacDougall says the work with victims on the front line informed the research included in the report.

She says firsthand accounts helped to examine protection orders and peace bonds, and expose systemic barriers that compromise victim-survivors’ safety. Femicide and IPV, she says, are social problems that require a social response.

The report’s recommendations centre around education and the implementation of laws that better promote women’s safety “and ultimately, uniformity across all actors in the system,” meaning police, judges, crown counsel and support-workers.

As part of preventing killings and supporting victims, MacDougall says the BWSS website has many resources, including for concerned friends and family.

“We are a part of the community, and we want to support community, to respond to their questions and their concerns, and also to help support any any way that we can to bring resources into the lives of those individuals that are experiencing abuse.”