Since Oct. 2024, six women in Nova Scotia have been killed by their partners. Five of the perpetrators went on to kill themselves in gruesome murder-suicides. These are eye-watering numbers for a province of just over a million people. Murder-suicides are only the most appalling expression of a much deeper crisis—intimate partner violence has reached such a level in the province that the government has passed Bill 482 last fall, declaring it an epidemic. Thirty per cent of women and 22.5 per cent of men in the province report physical or sexual abuse from a partner—some of the highest numbers in the country. These numbers are very likely underreported. This reflects a broader national situation of steadily increasing intimate partner violence since 2016.
The epidemic doesn’t come from nowhere. Nova Scotia is experiencing an acute housing crisis. Shelters are overflowing, and public housing wait times for priority cases average 1.6 years. For women in abusive situations, the choice is often between abuse and homelessness, which also carries significant risk of violence. Nova Scotia also has the highest poverty rate in the country at 13.1 per cent—another compounding risk factor. Women in the province cannot afford to leave, and leaving might mean even more unsafe situations.
But will a provincial epidemic declaration change anything? Bill 482 doesn’t do anything but acknowledge a crisis, and the government has not made a single move to fund more shelters, more housing, or more services—vital measures for breaking the cycle of abuse. The only action taken has been the expansion of the RCMP taskforce on domestic violence. Police are notoriously bad at dealing with domestic violence, and are often the perpetrators. In fact, one of the six women killed since October was killed by a former RCMP officer. More policing does not prevent intimate partner violence.
The oppression of women has profound roots which precede capitalism. But the crisis of this sick capitalist system makes it worse and worse every day. No solution can be found in a system which creates and benefits from the housing crisis which chains women to an abusive situation, which benefits from paying women less than men, and in which social services are constantly underfunded. The epidemic of domestic violence cannot be solved under capitalism. Only by the working class overthrowing this system can we strike at the root of the oppression of women.
