Advocates say words matter when labelling recent death a femicide

The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) choice to label a recent death a femicide has some advocates saying it's about time.

Jennifer Zabarylo, 47, was found dead in her home on Sunday evening. Her husband Michael Zabarylo, 55, has been charged with second-degree murder. 

The OPS said it considers her death a femicide because "it occurred in the context of intimate partner violence, which is one of the many forms of misogynist killings."

A spokesperson told CBC this is the first time Ottawa police have used the term to describe a woman's death and said the change comes from input from partners around violence against women.

The term femicide denotes the killing of a woman or girls because of their sex or gender, but is sometimes more broadly or more narrowly applied, according to the Canadian Femicide Observatory.

The charge against Michael Zabarylo has not been proven in court. He has no prior criminal convictions.

Importance of tracking femicides

According to Heidi Illingworth, executive director of Ottawa Victim Services, it's important for OPS to use the label because it allows organizations to more easily track these deaths, raise awareness and press government for changes.

Illingworth sits on a violence against women committee which advises the OPS and said the group has been asking police to recognize and label femicide cases for some time.

"We need to do more to prevent this type of violence, because it's very concerning," she said.

Illingworth said the use of the label is so significant because it opens the door to finding solutions to femicide instead of ignoring it.

"We tend to keep violence that happens within the home hidden and private … And those of us who are advocates are saying the opposite. We need to call public attention to this problem. It is at epidemic levels."

"For Ottawa to begin to use the term femicide is significant," said Erin Lee, executive director of Lanark County Interval House and Community Support. "We can't talk about something that we're not prepared to name."

Her organization offers services to women and their children impacted by intimate partner violence.

She said Bill 173, which would declare intimate partner violence an "epidemic," in the province is a positive step. It follows a recommendation from the inquest into three murders in and around Renfrew County.

Ottawa Victim Services has received money from the municipal government to develop a bystander awareness program to help people safely intervene in situations before they became tragic, Illingworth said.

"There is a lot of public education that needs to happen," she said, which can help people understand whether they — or their friends or family — are in a healthy relationship.

"These hidden abuses and violence and coercive control that happen in families is a result of the patriarchal society that we still live in, and that we have work to do to change."