Behind Closed Doors
In horror movies, women often face danger in shadowy streets and dimly lit parking garages. They flee from unknown assailants, sprinting towards safety. They hurriedly slam doors and deadbolt them before sighing with relief, safe inside.
In these stories, home can be a haven for women and girls. Locked doors offer protection from the outside world—all those dark alleys and dangerous strangers. Real-life statistics, on the other hand, paint a much different picture.
In Canada in 2025, behind closed doors is one of the deadliest places a woman can be.
Intimate Partner Violence and Femicide in Canada
Every 48 hours, a woman in Canada is murdered. In almost 80% of cases, the perpetrator isn’t a stranger or a serial killer, but a man she should have been safe with: a boyfriend, husband, brother, uncle, father, or son. For these women and girls, home is no refuge; 77% are killed in a private location like their own home or one they share with the accused.
Intentionally killing women or girls because of their sex or gender is called femicide. Marissa Kokkoros, executive director of Aura Freedom International, says it’s a topic many would rather avoid. “There’s no nice way of talking about murder,” she admits, but she says the urgency of our current crisis requires tough conversations. “Almost 50% of women in Canada have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence. … It’s worthy of our attention.”
Aura Freedom is a women- and survivor-led organization dedicated to eradicating men’s violence against women. Despite well over a decade’s worth of effort and advocacy, however, Kokkoros says the situation for women in Canada isn’t getting better, and may even be getting worse: from 2019 to 2022, the number of women and girls killed by men increased by 27%.
As we approach the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, Aura Freedom is ringing the alarm bell and urging Canadians to recognize femicide for what it is: “a crisis, an emergency, and a human rights abuse, rather than something private that stays behind closed doors.”
Myths and Misogyny
Kokkoros says that reducing intimate partner violence and femicide requires investing in prevention, to stop what she calls a “revolving door of frontline services.” Paraphrasing Desmond Tutu, she explains, “We are forever pulling people out of the river, rather than going upstream to find out why they’re falling in.”
Facts about Femicide in Canada
Every 48 hours, a woman is killed in Canada—most often by a man she shares a home with.
44% of women and girls in Canada report experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence, which has been identified as an indicator of femicide.
From 2019 to 2022, the number of women and girls killed by men increased by 27%.
Intimate partner and familial femicide are the most common forms of femicide in Canada. In 2024, 77.5% of victims were murdered by their husbands, boyfriends, fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, and other men they were meant to be safest with.
According to the Final Report of the National Inquiry into MMIWG, Indigenous women and girls are twelve times more likely to be killed than any other women in Canada.
She believes the increase in men’s violence against women is due in part to a rise in misogyny and an aggressive pushback against feminism. On a macro level, Kokkoros sees these themes manifest in “manosphere” ideas creeping into mainstream media and restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, and at the micro level in the homes of women and girls, and in their relationships with male partners, family members, co-workers, classmates, and friends.
Misogyny is defined as the hatred of women, and it isn’t hard to find examples of this ideology in action online. With just a few clicks, you can find violent pornography degrading women and girls and even normalizing their abuse and subjugation. Mainstream platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube offer a virtually limitless library of content featuring anti-feminist, anti-woman sentiments that frame women as the enemy, blame them for men’s issues, and encourage violence against them.
In these spaces, feminism is purposely distorted and mischaracterized as misandry, the hatred of men. Feminist ideology, however, holds that all genders should have equal rights, freedoms, and opportunities. Intersectional feminism additionally seeks to dismantle all forms of oppression, including colonialism and systemic racism. Put simply, feminism seeks equality, not domination—freedom instead of control.
Recognizing how misogyny leads to men’s violence is vital to dispelling common misconceptions and understanding why femicide needs to be identified as a distinct form of violence.
“When you view someone from birth as less valuable than and inferior to you, it validates and justifies you mistreating them, abusing them, controlling them, dominating them,” Kokkoros explains. “Women are murdered in very different ways than men. It comes down to power and control and intimate relationships or familial relationships in most cases. … It’s not the weird stranger in the alley.”
Kokkoros hopes opening the door to conversations about femicide will call more men in as advocates and allies, and encourage them to engage in efforts to prevent gender-based violence and dismantle misogyny.
“There are many amazing men who care about this,” she says, “But it’s not enough to say, ‘Hey, I don’t abuse my partner, or I respect my daughter.’… You actually have to actively work against sexism, work against misogyny, call it out when you see it, call it out when you hear it. Go above and beyond. March with us when we’re marching.”
Three Ways to Take Action
Tie a purple ribbon on your front door or office door during the 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence (November 25 to December 10) to show your support for ending femicide in Canada. Tag @aurafreedom and #BehindClosedDoors to share a picture of your door.
Learn more about femicide and help spread awareness by visiting and sharing Aura Freedom’s Behind Closed Doors campaign
Donate to Aura Freedom’s work to end femicide and violence against women.
Overrepresentation of Indigenous Women
Intimate partner violence can affect women from every walk of life. In Canada, however, Indigenous women and girls are at a much higher risk, something Kokkoros calls “Canada’s greatest shame.” Indigenous women are three and a half times more likely to experience spousal violence than non-Indigenous women in Canada, and Indigenous women and girls are twelve times more likely to be murdered.
Indigenous organizations and communities across Canada are leading efforts to address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMWIG), guided by the 231 Calls for Justice provided by Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Aura Freedom has collaborated with the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto to create resources and spread awareness, while actively amplifying Indigenous-led advocacy for the swift implementation of all 231 calls to justice.
Ending Gender-based Violence
Alongside other women-centred and feminist organizations like the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, Aura Freedom works to combat intimate partner violence and femicide through education, advocacy, and campaigns like Behind Closed Doors.
Behind Closed Doors is a public-education campaign launched in May 2025, when Aura Freedom collaborated with Doors Open Toronto to install bright pink doors in front of Toronto City Hall, raising awareness about the femicide crisis. The pink doors will return to several locations—including inside Toronto City Hall—during the 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence, from November 25 to December 10.
Aura Freedom hopes the campaign will encourage discussions about femicide and, by intentionally using bright pink doors, call attention to the role gender plays in these murders. “We’ll gender everything, except when it comes to femicide,” Kokkoros says.
Using the term “femicide” makes a crucial distinction based on the motivation of the accused, similar to the way hate-crime legislation identifies acts based on factors like race, religion, or sexual orientation.
“It’s about how and why women are being killed,” Kokkoros says. “They’re being killed because they’re women. … It’s not a crime of passion. It’s not stranger danger. … It has to do with patterns of abuse, with sexism, with gender inequality, misogyny, patriarchy, systemic racism. That’s what we’re talking about here, and that’s why we need to name it in the Criminal Code.”
To date, twenty-nine countries have enacted laws addressing femicide, including Mexico, France, Spain, and Brazil. Aura Freedom is urging the Canadian government to study the issue, evaluate the approach taken by other countries, and decide whether Canada will join these other governments in recognizing femicide as a distinct form of gender-based violence.
Kokkoros says that by doing so, the Canadian government can make significant strides towards saving lives and preventing the far-reaching ripple effects of femicide.
“When we are harming women, we all lose,” she says. “It’s not because women are more important, but because in most cultures, women are the backbone of their families, of their communities, of their society. So when you break her down, you break down everyone she’s carrying on her back. … If we eradicate violence against women, we’ll see our communities start to thrive.”
Visit aurafreedom.org to learn more.
The post Behind Closed Doors first appeared on The Walrus.
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