There was a sombre but important event today at The CORE Arts and Culture Centre in Belleville.
A candlelight vigil was held commemorating the tragic deaths of 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal on December 6 thirty-five years ago.
The shooting attack by a man who hated women, Marc Lepine, is remembered every December 6 on the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.
Photos of the victims of the Montreal Massacre. (Photo: Quinte News)
Natalie O’Toole of Three Oaks Foundation says despite more awareness of domestic violence it hasn’t disappeared.
“The roots of this violence, sexism, misogyny, power imbalances, and institutionalized discrimination are still alive and well. These are the forces that continue to fuel the epidemic of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence that we see today.”
O’Toole says the killing of women, or femicide, and other violence toward women is at epidemic proportions and getting worse. She pointed to a growing online group known as “Incel” made up of mostly young men unable or unwilling to form romantic relationships with women who spew hatred toward them.
In 2023 alone, 62 women were victims of femicide, most of them at the hands of men well known to them and both femicide and domestic violence have been on the increase in recent years.
And due to the lack of affordable housing, many women suffer in desperate silence. Women’s shelters, such as those run by Three Oaks, are often full for longer.
In years past a typical shelter stay was three months but now it’s common that women and children remain under protection for as much as a year.
The vigil was proudly organized by Three Oaks Foundation, the Sexual Assault Centre for Quinte and District, Community Advocacy & Legal Centre, Victim Services HPELA, The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Quinte Health, Red Cedars and the Quinte Coordinating Committee Against Violence.
