Statement by CUPE Alberta President Marle Roberts
It is a day many Canadians will note because far too many women are still living with violence.
This date was chosen because it is the anniversary of the terrible massacre of 14 young women in an act of violence at l’École Polytechnique, a post-secondary school in Montreal, in 1989.
Most acts of violence against women are not so spectacular. Most happen in isolation. Most are not reported in the media. Many are not even reported to the police.
On any given day in Canada, more than 3,000 women (along with their 2,500 children) are living in an emergency shelter to escape domestic violence. CUPE members work in many of these shelters and see the effects of violence first hand.
On average, every six days a woman in Canada is killed by an intimate partner or former partner. In just one year in Canada over 400,000 women over the age of 15 reported being sexually assaulted. Half of all Canadian women have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence since they turned 16.
There are mountains of work to be done to solve this problem. I encourage you to visit whiteribbon.ca to learn more and become active in preventing violence against women.
More statistics available here: http://www.canadianwomen.org/facts-about-violence
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