London police board wants input on addressing femicide

The London Police Services Board is looking for community feedback as it works towards drafting a letter to the Government of Canada on femicide.

At the June meeting of the board, three motions were passed regarding femicide and hate crime against women, according to a statement.

“Addressing male violence against women is a priority of our Board. One woman or girl is murdered in Canada every 36 hours. A disproportionate number of these women and girls are Indigenous,” reads the statement.

The board says it is committed to addressing these issues and as a first step would like femicide commonly understood as the killing of women and girls, defined in the Criminal Code of Canada.

The statement goes on to say, “The goal in defining femicide is to see it labelled and addressed as a hate motivated crime”

The three motions passed include:

1. The Board advocate that the Government of Canada define femicide in the Criminal Code of Canada; and
2. The Board direct the Chief of Police to include a requirement in his related procedures that officers investigating any incident in which a victim is from an identifiable group as outlined in section 318 (4) of the Criminal Code, consider the motivation of the action and if the motivation reflects hate, that it be investigated as such; and
3. The Chief of Police include in the LPS Annual Report to the Board the demographic information of known perpetrators of hate/bias motivated crimes, and the demographic information of victims of homicide* specifically to reflect the sex of the victims. (*noting this section will be updated upon a Criminal Code definition of femicide).

If you would like to submit input to the board, you are asked to do so by e-mail by July 31.