The goal was to Take Back the Night, and they did.
Hundreds of people marched through the streets of downtown Barrie on Thursday evening for the annual Take Back the Night protest and rally against sexual assault and gender-based violence.
The event was hosted by Barrie-based Athena's Sexual Assault Counselling & Advocacy Centre, a program of Huronia Transition Homes (HTH), a non-profit organization that has been operating in Simcoe County for 40 years.
"The meaning of the night is really in the title," according to Haily MacDonald, acting executive director of HTH. "So many women and gender-diverse folks do not feel safe walking at night. Taking back the night is really getting a group of people together so we can walk through the streets and reclaim them so that we feel safe and powerful through a collective."
Last month, the Ontario government said it would support a New Democratic Party bill to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in the province. At the time, Government House leader Paul Calandra said the Progressive Conservative government would ask the justice committee to examine intimate partner violence and return with recommendations.
"There is lots of conservation we can have around the perception of what violence and gender-based violence looks like, but most of the time it isn't the hands of a stranger, it's at the hands of somebody you know," said MacDonald.
The violence doesn't have to be physical.
"There is many types of violence," MacDonald explained. "Emotional abuse is enormous, and there is also sexual violence and financial abuse. We always talk about violence in our organization as a moment where you have no power and control in a relationship."
When it comes to the march through downtown, HTH Community Development Coordinator Amanda Wagner said men are asked to be at the back of the line.
"We want women and gender-diverse people to lead this night and to lead this movement because it is an issue that disproportionately affects women and gender-diverse people, and it's about this group of people taking back that power."
MacDonald was asked what metrics are used to measure whether the message of Take Back the Night is resonating.
"I think that's a really tough question. Though, we are lucky in the province of Ontario that in December we signed on to the National Action Plan of Gender-Based Violence."
MacDonald says with more folks feeling less shame and blame, and less silence around violence, it really demonstrates the need to have more services.
She shared some statistics to back her point, noting that last year in Ontario, there were 58 femicides and five women murdered in 12 months.
"That's more than one a week. When I started in this organization 10 years ago, that number was 28 women in the province. I think sometimes we can measure progress through stats. But when we talk about consciousness-raising and different movements like #MeToo, where more folks are talking about it, and those stats are now increasing."
Banner image - organizers of Take Back the Night rally in Barrie leave from City Hall to march through the downtown on Thursday, May 2, 2024 - Barrie 360
