What is a ‘femicide’ and why do some advocates and police want it in the Criminal Code?

In a rare move, the Ottawa Police Service is using the term “femicide” to describe the motivation investigators believe to be behind the killing of a 47-year-old mother.

It’s believed to be the first time a police force in Canada has used the word in the context of a murder investigation where evidence is still being gathered.

Advocates who focus on eradicating violence against women hope this will spur other police agencies to do the same and pave the way for legislation to entrench “femicide” into the criminal code of Canada.

Jennifer Zabarylo’s battered body was found inside her home in rural Ottawa on Sunday. She died of traumatic injuries. A few hours later, Ottawa Police charged her husband, Michael Zabarylo, 55, with second-degree murder after he turned himself in.

In a news release announcing the charges one day after she was killed, OPS described the death as a femicide, alleging “it occurred in the context of intimate partner violence, which is one of the many forms of misogynist killings.”

In an interview with CTV National News, Deputy Chief Trish Ferguson acknowledged that adopting the term has taken lengthy internal discussions which began in 2022.

Part of the pushback came from officers who were hesitant to use a label that was not codified in law.

“That was something investigators needed to wrap their minds around. It’s not a charge under the criminal code, but it’s a term we use to describe what took place. So homicide is still murder and femicide is the murder of a woman or girl.”

Ferguson says OPS officially adopted the term at the end of 2023 and that Zabarylo’s death was the first clear-cut case to meet the definition.

“Violence against women is an epidemic. This is another way for us to shed some light on what is often seen as a hidden and family matter where people should mind their own business. We’re hoping this brings the conversation to the forefront.”

Ferguson says OPS will use the term again in future murder investigations and may re-evaluate past cases through the same lens.

“Do we go back and take a look at that? I think we can and it’s time for us to do that. I’m sure the numbers will startle people,” the deputy chief said.

Edmonton Police said they defer to terms used in the criminal code, while the Toronto Police Service (TPS) said they have not yet adopted the term “femicide.” But TPS points out that in a joint investigation with the RCMP, “misogyny” was highlighted as a motivating factor when investigators laid a terrorism charge in connection to the killing of 24 year-old Ashley Arzaga.

According to Statistics Canada, an average of 102 women and children are murdered each year.

Between 2011 and 2021, 1,125 females were murdered. In 66 per cent of those cases, the killer was an intimate partner, a husband or a boyfriend.

Brett Broadfoot says his grief is still raw and hits him in waves – sometimes daily, sometimes “hour by hour.”

His 17-year-old daughter Breanna was stabbed and died in hospital in July. London, Ont., police responded to the call reporting domestic violence. They say that when they arrived, her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend confronted them with a knife. Police shot and killed him.

Broadfoot wants his daughter’s death labelled a femicide too. He believes a more concise definition of the killing could lead to stronger legislation and more resources to thwart misogyny and violence against women.

“My daughter was afraid. That’s what these individuals do – they prey upon people and they break them down.”

He says that Breanna had a restraining order against her former boyfriend after he was charged with assaulting her. He says closer monitoring of the suspect and enforcement of the restraining order could have saved his daughter’s life.

Megan Walker is the Vice-Chair of the London Police board and an advocate who works to end male violence against women. Although London Police have not adopted the term “femicide” to describe their investigations, Walker points out that it was the first police board to pass a resolution to define femicide in the criminal code.

Now combined with the decision of Ottawa Police to use the term to characterize certain murder investigations, Walker says momentum is building for change.

“If we are able to legislate femicide and name it – we would have better access to research and better access to data that we need to continue to protect women from violent offenders,” he said.

The concept of putting femicide in the criminal code was also one of the recommendations that came out of a 2022 coroner’s inquest in Ontario, which looked at the circumstances surrounding a killing spree in the Ottawa Valley in 2015.

Anastasia Kuzyk and Nathalie Warmerdam were shot while Carol Culleton was strangled to death — all by one man.

Two years after the inquest – femicide has yet to be added to Canada’s criminal code. According to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, 22 other countries in Latin America and Europe have specific laws recognizing the killing of women and girls as a distinct crime.