Susan Clairmont: Two Hamilton-area women on list of 59 victims of femicide in Ontario this year

When Marc Lepine walked into Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal 32 years ago and began killing women, Canadians were introduced to the term femicide.'

He shot 14 women dead and wounded 10 more. Most were engineering students and he blamed them for being accepted into the program while he was not.

On Dec. 6, 1989, he separated women from men and began firing.

He committed femicide.

The Montreal Massacre is memorialized each year with the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

The word femicide was around for well over a hundred years before that day, but wasn't widely used in Canada. It still isn't, outside academic circles, even though the United Nations employs the term to denote the most extreme forms of violence against women and girls around the world.

It's most common definition is: the killing of women, by men, because they are women.

At least two Hamilton-area women were possible victims of femicide in 2021, according to an annual list released by the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH).

Moui Khuu, 61, was fatally stabbed April 16 at her George Street apartment, allegedly by her son. Her husband, Hung Vo, was also killed. Phuong Hoa Vo is charged with two counts of second degree murder.

Moui will be remembered as a loving and devoted mother to her children," the list says. Moui enjoyed spending her time in the garden and cooking with her husband, who she was married to for over 37 years."

An 89-year-old woman died Sept. 5 in a Brantford retirement home after being pushed and hitting her head. She has not been publicly identified. Another resident of the facility, an 82-year-old man who has also not been publicly identified by Brantford Police, was charged with manslaughter but has been found unfit to stand trial.

Artwork accompanying the list - a drawing of a woman with her eyes closed and a finger pressed against her lips - was dedicated by artist Rachel Gillespie to another Hamilton murder victim, Tania Cowell.

Tania, 36, was stabbed by her partner in 2013 after she said she was leaving and taking their baby son with her. Hayden Suarez Noa was convicted of second degree murder.

Two trials this year have put the murders of women in front of Hamilton juries.

Currently, jurors are hearing evidence about the death of Holly Hamilton, 29. She was stabbed 17 times in January 2018, her frozen body found in the trunk of her car. Her boyfriend, Justin Dumpfrey, faces second degree murder charges.

In October, a jury convicted Natasha Thompson's killer of second degree murder. Natasha, 36, was shot 10 times by boyfriend Mark Champagne in 2017. Natasha had told him she was ending their relationship.

OAITH uses the list to bring attention to the staggering statistics around femicide and to honour each victim.

There are 58 people on this year's list. The youngest is a three-year-old girl. The oldest are two 89-year-old women - including the one in Brantford.

In 2020, the list contained 37 names.

Gender violence experts, shelter staff and police say violence targeting women and girls has risen during the pandemic. They have cited increased stress, job loss and economic hardship, lockdowns, reduced social services and virtual schooling as factors contributing to isolation and a rise in violence.

Since 1990, over 900 women, girls and gender-diverse individuals who have lost their lives to men's violence" have been included in the femicide list, according to OAITH. And it acknowledges the list may be incomplete.

Our understanding of femicide is evolving to reflect research, the law and human rights and new ways of thinking about gender.

The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, based at Guelph University says most femicides are committed by current or former male partners - a pattern that exists worldwide." The Observatory prefers the term intimate partner femicide."

The Observatory breaks femicide down into further subsections, acknowledging that categories can intersect:

• The Observatory says it is working to identify an appropriate term to capture femicide of Indigenous women and girls. This violence points to society's systemic failure to prevent and properly investigate the missing and the murdered.

• Familial femicide is the killing of a woman by a family member who was not her intimate partner.

• Stranger femicide is the killing of a woman by a man she does not know.

• Armed conflict femicide is the use of violence and the fear it causes as a weapon of war."

• Associated/connected femicide is the killing of a woman who was not the intended victim. She may have been nearby, or she tried to intervene.

• Culturally-framed femicide can include a dowry-related femicide or a so-called honour killing" of a woman or girl who is blamed for bringing shame on her family.

Other categories of femicide include those focused on race or transphobia or perpetrated in conjunction with human trafficking, organized crime, sexual violence or sex work.

There is also the incel movement - involuntarily celibate - comprising men angry at women for not having sex with them. Its roots are in online chat rooms.

This paints a bleak picture.

But we must force society to see femicide and name it. Because that's where prevention begins.

Susan Clairmont is a justice columnist at The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com

For help

Hamilton Police Sexual Assault Unit, Phone: 905-540-5553, Online: hamiltonpolice.on.ca

Sexual Assault Centre of Hamilton and Area (SACHA): 905-525-4573 (office) or 905-525-4162 (crisis line)

McMaster University Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office, Email: svpro@mcmaster.ca

Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centres: 1-855-628-7238 (nurse-staffed navigation line) or sadvtreatmentcentres.ca

Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Services (SAVIS): savis@savisofhalton.org, 905-825-3622 (office) or 905-875-1555 (crisis line)

Sexual Assault & Domestic Violence Care Centre at Hamilton Health Sciences, Phone: 905-521-2100, ext. 73557

Halton Violence Prevention Council: 905-845-3811 ext. 124 or hvpc.coord@hvpc.ca (email preferred)

Halton Women's Place: 905-878-8555 (crisis line)

Nina's Place (regional sexual assault and domestic violence care centre at Joseph Brant Hospital emergency department): 905-336-4116