WomanACT welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the development of Canada’s first Men and Boys’ Health Strategy. As an organization dedicated to ending gender-based violence (GBV) and advancing gender equity, engaging men and boys in preventing Gender-based Violence (GBV), including Family Violence (FV) and Intimate partner Violence (IPV) is both a public health priority and a critical component of violence prevention.
While gender-based violence disproportionately affects women and girls, a comprehensive approach to men’s health should also examine how harmful gender norms shape men’s experiences, attitudes, relationships, and help-seeking behaviours, while supporting their role as allies in prevention efforts. Improving men’s health should not be viewed as separate from advancing gender equality. Rather, these goals are interconnected.
Canada has an opportunity to develop a men and boy’s health strategy that advances health equity through a public health approach grounded in primary prevention, gender-transformative practice, and the social determinants of health. By addressing the root causes of both poor health outcomes and gender-based violence rather than symptoms alone, Canada can strengthen protective factors, reduce inequities, and foster healthier, safer communities for everyone.
The EASE Design Challenge report synthesizes key learnings, insights, and limitations from an initiative designed to engage students and professionals in developing innovative responses to technology-facilitated financial abuse. It highlights the persistent barriers survivors face when seeking support from financial institutions, underscoring critical gaps in current systems. In response, the Design Challenge aimed to catalyze survivor-centred, coordinated solutions that can identify and interrupt abuse, enable secure and autonomous account access, and provide clear, trauma-informed pathways for addressing coerced or fraudulent debt.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Survivors use a range of strategies and supports to navigate and resist the impacts of financial abuse, working to regain safety, control, and financial independence.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Financial abuse is often unseen. However, survivors say that its impact on their lives can be extreme.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Survivors describe financial abuse as ongoing control over their finances, where access to money, decision-making, and independence are restricted.
These infographics are based on a WomanACT survey (103) and interviews (10) with women and gender-diverse people in Ontario with lived experience of intimate partner violence. They highlight the impacts and lived realities of financial abuse, as well as the barriers survivors face when seeking support. The insights also surface practical strategies and advice shared by participants for navigating and responding to financial abuse.
Learn more about the EASE – Economic Abuse Support & Empowerment Project
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
Read the official news release from Women and Gender Equality Canada here.
The Community Wellness – Canadian MARAC Pilot (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference) project is coordinating a multi-agency response to high-risk domestic violence cases.
The Canadian MARAC is a structured, multi-agency meeting that brings together community agencies to share information on high-risk domestic violence cases. Based on the risks and needs identified by the survivor and professionals around the table, a coordinated safety plan is developed that includes clear actions by community agencies to increase the survivor’s safety.
The Canadian MARAC is an adaptation of the MARAC model originally developed in Wales in 2003 and now implemented in more than 250 communities across the United Kingdom. The model has been shown to reduce repeat victimization, increase survivor safety, and strengthen connections to critical supports and services.
WomanACT has been piloting the Canadian adaptation of the MARAC model and is now expanding this work to scale the model both within Toronto and communities in Alberta.
This project has been funded through Women and Gender Equality Canada
Advancing Equality: Addressing Workplace Harassment through Policy Change in the STEM Sector is an initiative aimed at raising awareness and driving collective action to tackle systemic challenges faced by women in STEM across Ontario. Women in STEM face persistent barriers, including gender bias, discrimination, and sexual harassment, which hinder their success and career progression. This project emphasizes cross-sector collaboration, bringing together industry leaders, survivor advocates, and gender equity experts to conduct research and co-develop impactful, evidence-based solutions. By fostering partnerships across diverse systems, the initiative seeks to create safer, more inclusive workplaces for women.
This project has been funded through Women and Gender Equality Canada’s Women’s Program
Disclaimer: If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety, please call 911 or your local emergency services immediately. Your safety is the top priority.
It can be difficult to know where to turn if you’re experiencing violence or concerned that someone else might be. This factsheet highlights crisis supports and safety planning resources for survivors of intimate partner violence.
Financial systems are not neutral, they are embedded in broader social and gendered contexts and are shaped by them.
Being gender-inclusive in financial tech (fintech) design inherently requires a trauma-informed lens. Fintech tools are often designed from a gender-neutral perspective, which assumes all users have similar needs, risks, and relationships to money. This approach overlooks how financial control and coercion are gendered.
This factsheet outlines the principles of the trauma-informed approach, their definitions and examples of their application to financial technologies.