The Ottawa Police Service is looking into creating a new program to raise awareness about violence against women after Centretown was painted purple during the “Shine the Light” campaign earlier this month.
This is the second year the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, founded in London, Ont. in 2010, has run the campaign. The campaign uses purple – the colour associated with domestic violence – to break the silence around violence against women, says Erin Leigh, executive director of the coalition.
This year’s campaign was launched at the Ottawa police headquarters on Nov. 25 as a part of “Women Abuse Prevention Month,” marking the beginning of 16 days of activism.
The police, 23 businesses on Elgin Street and the City of Ottawa participated by showcasing the colour purple in light bulbs, posters and ribbons.
A vigil at Minto Park concluded the campaign on Dec. 6, which commemorated the 24th anniversary of the 1989 Montreal massacre in which 14 women were killed at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal because of their gender. It’s also the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, which was established in 1991, two years after the fatal shooting.
Even with remembrance ceremonies, violence remains a “widespread endemic problem in our society today,” says Leigh.
According to the Ottawa Police Service, the city has averaged 4,600 reported incidents of domestic violence per year since 2009. However, Leigh says these are “just the tip of the iceberg,” as many incidents go unreported.
Victims of violence don’t often speak out because they feel alone, says Tara Henderson, communications co-ordinator at the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre. She compares this silence to cancer, saying that people are often more aware of one’s symptoms of cancer than if they were to experience violence.
“Violence tends to be taboo and no one talks about it, so that’s why the campaign is called Shine the Light,” she says.
Despite this culture of silence, Insp. Joan McKenna, head of the Ottawa Police women and violence unit, says the OPS is in the process of creating a new program that focuses on “prevention and better service delivery.”
She adds that the OPS is reviewing its internal mechanisms on how officers deal with victims of violence, from how officers conduct and file police reports all the way to the court process if there is one.
The OPS held a closed meeting on Dec. 10 to discuss the programs. However, no specific details or dates have been released.
Alongside these new prevention programs, she says the OPS will continue to work with Crime Prevention Ottawa and other community organizations that deal specifically with violence against women to get more people talking about the issue.
“We want to change the culture, much like there was a shift in the culture about impaired driving,” she says. “The driving force behind it wasn’t the police giving out more impaired charges. It was (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) speaking about it that really shifted it.”
Although McKenna says she doesn’t believe violence will ever end, she notes campaigns such as Shine the Light and the OPS’s new plans are steps in the right direction.
“It’s about getting more people talking about it, creating more conversation. That’s what we want. That’s what’ll make violence against women socially unacceptable.”