Gender-based violence are acts of violence committed against women, transgender and gender diverse people because of their gender, gender identity, gender expression, or perceived gender. Women and gender diverse people are disproportionate targets of gender-based violence, including intimate-partner violence.
Colonialism and racism are root causes of violent victimization of Indigenous women. LEAF long advocated for the National Inquiry into the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and has called for the implementation of the Inquiry’s urgent Calls for Justice.
LEAF is also developing an expertise on how technology is exacerbating acts of gender-based violence both online and offline. LEAF intervened in the first Supreme Court of Canada case concerning the scope of the voyeurism provision in the Criminal Code about a high school teacher who used a camera pen to secretly film his students’ faces and cleavage.
LEAF will continue to advocate for needed reforms to legal processes, and urge a focus on prevention to create a positive shift in moving towards a world without gender-based violence.
