Brandonites to “take back the night”

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This article was published 14/10/2023 (1082 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Women’s Resource Centre is encouraging women, the LGBTQ2S+ community and their allies to take to the streets in a Take Back the Night March to fight back against the issue of domestic violence in Brandon.

The march takes place on Oct. 19, starting at Princess Park at 5:30 p.m. Drumming and speakers will start at 5:40 p.m., and the walk to Brandon University (BU) will start at 6 p.m.

This year marks the second march since the event had to go on hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Lucia Aguilar, a junior advocate at the resource centre. But even though the march took a break, the resource centre itself had plenty of people reaching out during that time, she added.

“There were a lot of reports concerning how domestic violence, intimate partner violence and family violence had increased a lot during COVID,” Aguilar said.

There has also been an increase in gender-based violence and violence targeted towards Brandon’s LGBTQ2S+ community, which she believes is in part due to issues with the Brandon School Division (BSD).

Former BSD trustee Lorraine Hackenschmidt made a presentation to school board on May 8, where she called for the creation of a committee to review and potentially remove books that featured information on gender identity and sexual health from school shelves. Two weeks later, on May 24, Hackenschmidt’s request was denied during a marathon school board meeting that lasted more than six hours. The meeting was held in Vincent Massey High School’s gymnasium because more than 25 people had requested time for presentations. Additional time was also needed for trustees to read a summary from the 289 emails and letters sent to the BSD board, most of which were vehemently opposed to Hackenschmidt’s proposal.

Before the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party was ousted from government in the Oct. 3 election, then-premier Heather Stefanson talked about modifying the Public School Act to include more parental oversight. However, critics of the move labelled it not only unnecessary and redundant, but an anti-LGBTQ2s+ dog whistle, especially after new education policies in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan that require children under 16 to have parental consent before changing their preferred first names or pronouns at school.

Aly Wowchuk, the chair of Brandon Pride, has also noticed how the controversy swirling around the BSD is affecting members of the LGBTQ2s+ community in the Wheat City.

“The May 23 Brandon School Division meeting wasn’t a one-off. This group has continued to harass and get into these races … for city council and school board,” she said. “A lot of our members have been feeling, as a lot of people are, scared and angry at this very accelerating and alarming rise in this activity.”

This is the first year that the Women’s Resource Centre has partnered with Brandon Pride for the march, which Aguilar said people from both organizations are very excited about.

“We are really wanting to engage with allies of the community,” she said. “It doesn’t only have to be women … or people that come from our community. We need allies in order for this movement to really take a stand and to really be meaningful and to raise awareness marches are for everyone. We want to include everybody in the community.”

When the Women’s Resource Centre reached out to Brandon Pride to take part in the event, it was something that made sense for organization, Wowchuk said.

“That’s a really important event that they put on through the years,” she said. “It actually falls in line with what we advocate and educate people about.”

According to the Canadian Femicide Observatory of Justice & Accountability, in the first six months of 2022 alone, 88 women and girls were killed by violence. In 2021, 173 women and girls were killed by violence, mostly by male partners. In 2020, 160 women and girls were killed by violence. Manitoba has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in Canada.

Canadians age 18 years and older who identified as lesbian or gay and bisexual were much more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be victims of violent crime, according to the 2014 General Social Survey on Canadian’s Safety. The Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety notes that transgender Canadians were more likely to have experienced violence since age 15, and also more likely to experience in appropriate behaviours in public, online and at work than cisgender Canadians.

The Women’s Resource Centre is also partnering with the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation and Brandon University for the upcoming march. Refreshments will be available in the BU mingling area upon arrival.

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