MyrnaDawson

Articles by: Myrna Dawson

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Canada’s shadow pandemic: Femicide

3rd August 2022

Professor Myrna Dawson, University of Guelph

OPINION: As the London Police Services Board in Ontario prepares to call on Canada’s federal government to add femicide to the criminal code – and with other police boards indicating their support for the move – Professor Myrna Dawson of the University of Guelph says introducing femicide-specific legislation would be a crucial first step in reducing the crisis of violence against women and girls.

A Toronto woman was set on fire on a TTC bus: police say they are investigating it as a hate-crime. (Toronto Police Service)

Toronto woman set on fire: Violence against women and girls should be treated as a hate crime

OPEN

19th July 2022

Professor Myrna Dawson, University of Guelph

OPINION: The death of a female passenger on a Toronto bus who died from severe burns after being set on fire by her killer is the latest example of violence and hate experienced by women and girls in Canada; Professor Myrna Dawson of the University of Guelph believes that, with ‘sex’ already an identifiable group within the Canadian Criminal Code, it’s time for such attacks to be treated as hate crimes.

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Myrna Dawson
Professor and Research Leadership Chair, Sociology, University of Guelph

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Myrna Dawson is a Professor of Sociology, Research Leadership Chair, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (www.violenceresearch.ca), University of Guelph. She is also Director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (www.femicideincanada.ca), Co-Director of the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention Initiative with Vulnerable Populations (www.cdhpi.ca), Senior Advisor for the Femicide Watch Platform, a joint project of the UN Studies Association (UNSA) Global Network and the UNSA Vienna's Femicide Team. Dawson has spent more than 20 years researching social and legal responses to violence with emphasis on violence against women and children and femicide. She is the author/co-author/editor of numerous publications and reports including Woman Killing: Intimate Femicide in Ontario, 1991-1994; Violence Against Women in Canada (Oxford University Press, 2011 with Holly Johnson); and Domestic Homicides and Death Reviews: An International Perspective (Palgrave Macmillian, 2017). She has published in various journals, including Trauma Violence & Abuse, Child Abuse & Neglect, Violence Against Women, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, and the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.