“Until recently, the issue of treating femicide as a separate crime was overshadowed by the criminalization of coercive control,” said Sipowo.
While coercive control in intimate relationships is often a precursor to femicide, limiting the law’s focus to coercive control ignores femicides committed outside the context of intimate relationships.
“The World Health Organization recognizes at least four different forms of femicide,” explained Sipowo. These are intimate partner femicide, honour killings, dowry-related femicide and non-intimate femicide.
Femicides can also occur in the context of societal power imbalances rooted in colonial history, as Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls demonstrated.
“If we remain focused solely on coercion, we lose sight of gender-based power dynamics outside the couple,” Sipowo argued. These systemic imbalances are clearly reflected in the disproportionate impact of femicide on Indigenous, racialized and marginalized women.
Highlights a societal problem
Women’s rights groups are often wary of the criminal justice system, particularly because it tends to revictimize survivors of intimate partner violence. They are also sceptical that more policing and prison time can solve the problem, preferring to prioritize systemic changes, psychological support for victims and preventing violence before it happens.
On the other hand, treating femicide as a separate crime would equip the justice system—including police, coroners and lawyers—with better tools to address the issue.
“For researchers, a legal definition would make it possible to better quantify the problem in order to prevent it,” said Sipowo.
“We don’t think research should overshadow the need for prevention and funding for victim support, but we believe the two can go hand in hand,” Rohr added.
Since their article was published, the federal government has introduced new legislation to criminalize both coercive control within intimate partnerships and femicide. It is now winding its way through Parliament for debate and review, and Sipowo and Rohr are preparing a follow-up article on the subject.
Making femicide a separate crime sends a strong message. “It highlights the fact that violence against women is a societal problem rooted in patriarchal power dynamics, and it signals that it is a priority,” concluded Rohr.
Sipowo echoed this view. “The way we define criminal behaviour is an indication of a society’s fundamental values,” he said. “Canada must live up to its commitments on women’s rights.”
