December 6th is National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women in Canada.
67% of Canadians know a woman who has experienced physical or sexual abuse.
6,000+ women and children sleep in shelters on any given night because it isn’t safe at home.
6x Indigenous women are killed at six times the rate of non-Indigenous women.
Established in 1991, this day commemorates the 1989 murders of 14 female engineering students at Montreal’s l'École Polytechnique. They were targeted and died because they were women.
December 6th is about remembering the victims of gender-based violence. It’s about acknowledging and reflecting on the fact that for far too many Canadian women and girls, violence is still a daily reality. And it's about taking action and making a commitment to ourselves and our communities that we will do something to change this.
“As a female-dominated profession and union, the issue of gender-based violence hits incredibly close to home for registered nurses,” says SUN President, Tracy Zambory. “We need concrete actions that will have a material impact on ending emotional, financial, physical, psychological, and sexual violence against women and girls. Our biggest barrier to success is, and will always be, our silence – our failure to speak out against gender-based violence in our communities.”
Registered nurses interact with women who have suffered gender-based traumas in a variety of settings, such as emergency rooms and public health clinics. This places them in a critical position to assist victims in developing a safety plan as well as helping to connect them with supports such as shelters or counselling services.
There is no place for gender-based violence in our province, in our Canada, and in our world.
