By Pam Wright
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
An epidemic of intimate partner violence has been declared in Chatham-Kent.
The vote was unanimous on a motion brought forward by Chatham Coun. Alysson Storey at council’s recent meeting.
The municipality now joins 70 other Ontario municipalities that have declared gender-based violence and/or intimate partner violence an epidemic.
The motion calls on Mayor Darrin Canniff to send a letter to provincial leaders and organizations – including Premier Doug Ford – to declare an intimate partner violence epidemic in Ontario. It also calls on the province to implement 86 recommendations from the Renfrew County Inquest and set up a committee to oversee the implementation.
Carol Culleton, Anastasia Kuzyk, and Nathalie Warmerdam were all killed by the same man on the same day in 2015. The Renfrew County Inquest recommendations came as a result of their deaths.
Council heard that in Canada a woman is killed every six days by an intimate partner, and in Ontario, 52 women – one a week – are victims of femicide.
Council heard three moving deputations on the matter, including one from Michelle Schryer, outgoing executive director of the Chatham-Kent Sexual Assault Crisis Centre; and another from Karen Hunter, executive director of the Chatham-Kent Women’s Centre, speaking on behalf of the Chatham-Kent Co-ordinating Committee to End Violence Against Women. A survivor who utilized the system to escape violence at the hands of her partner to protect herself and her children also gave a deputation.
Schryer provided several examples of women who had been killed in intimate partner violence.
“Their murders were preventable,” Schryer said.
According to Hunter, social programs, such as the supports provided by the C-K Women’s Centre are having a hard time keeping up with the need.
Cases of intimate partner violence occur daily in Chatham-Kent, Hunter stated, noting that every night in Canada 6,000 women and children are sleeping in shelters “because it isn’t safe to be at home.
“I can tell you at the Chatham-Kent Women’s Centre, for the last six months, we have been well beyond our bed capacity, which is 15 women and children per day,” Hunter said. “And we have far more than that who need to be in.”
Hunter told council Chatham-Kent Victim Services reported assisting 296 domestic assault victims, 148 sexual assault victims and 47 human trafficking victims in 2022.
“They expect to surpass those numbers in 2023,” she said.
In 2023, the Women’s Centre reports it has assisted 112 women and children with emergency shelter services, responded to more than 2,000 crisis calls, provided 457 women with outreach counselling services and assisted 15 human trafficking victims.
Last year, Chatham-Kent police received 1,788 calls related to intimate partner violence.
“Gender-based and intimate partner violence is an epidemic,” Hunter stressed, “and there is no one organization able to provide solutions to these complex challenges on their own.”
Council’s motion also directs the Chatham-Kent Police Services Board to integrate intimate partner violence into the CKPS Community Safety and Wellbeing plan.
Violence against women costs the national justice system, health care and social service programs, including municipalities, an estimated $10 billion a year in Canada.
