Domestic violence campaign highlights strangulation risks and femicide prevention

York Regional Police and the York Region Centre for Community Safety have partnered for the Taking Your Breath Away campaign.

The campaign recognizes strangulation as one key predictor of femicide, where in Ontario, 37 women have been killed in 2024.

Advocates say campaigns such as the Take Your Breath Away can inform and save lives.

"Every one of those femicides had experienced strangulation by their current or former partner. And so, through this campaign, creating awareness, asking for because one of our calls to actions is that people not only track but that all the agencies involved in a survivor's life, at whatever point, engage in strangulation-specific training so that we can actually together save lives, said Jaspreet Gill, executive director, York Region Center for Community Safety.

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Experts say in most cases, strangulation leaves no visible injury, and the difference between unconsciousness, brain damage, and death can happen in a matter of seconds.

They add that men who strangle their partners are likely to also strangle their children.

"We must do everything we can to educate women and girls about the peril they face if they've experienced this behavior. York Regional Police is committed to raising awareness about strangulation, in particular, and intimate partner violence overall," said Jim Killby, superintendent of Investigative Services, York Regional Police.

According to York regional police, if a woman is strangled by her partner, even once, she becomes 750 per cent more likely to be killed by that same partner.

"Those of us who intersect with survivors in law enforcement, social service agencies, and health care, if we're asking that key question, has he applied pressure to your neck? That is how we can begin to understand her risk factors and begin to help her in the way that she needs," said Gill.

November marks Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the York Region Center for Community Safety.