RESEARCH PAPER Not the 'Golden Years': Femicide of Older Women In
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RESEARCH PAPER Not the ‘golden years’: Femicide of older women in Canada by Myrna Dawson, PhD Professor and Research Leadership Chair Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence University of Guelph Final Research Paper Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime Department of Justice Canada 27 April 2021 2 Table of Contents I Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 II Background context ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7 Defining the scope of the problem --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Understanding aging as a gendered process ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 The invisibility of violence against older women -------------------------------------------------------------- 10 What do we mean by older women? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10 III Theoretical Perspectives ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11 Framing femicide of older women using a social ecological lens -------------------------------------------- 11 Personal history/biography ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Relational/microsystem ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Mesosystem ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Community-level/exosystem ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12 Societal-level/macrosystem ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 Chronosystem ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 Intersectionality ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 Feminism ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 IV What do we know about femicide of older women? ------------------------------------------------------- 15 Estimated prevalence of femicide of older women ------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Characteristics of victims ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19 Sex------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------19 Age ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Marital status ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Children ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Employment status ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Race/ethnicity ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 Criminal and mental health histories -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Characteristics of perpetrators ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Gender ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Age ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Marital status ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Children ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Employment status ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Race/ethnicity ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Criminal and mental health histories -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20 Victim-perpetrator relationship ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Characteristics of the incidents ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 21 Types of previous violence ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21 Number of victims and perpetrators --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Presence of witnesses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Substance use ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Location of killing ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Killings in long-term care facilities and homes -------------------------------------------------------------- 22 Method of killing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 Sexual violence --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 23 3 Excessive violence ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Motive ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 Concealment of killing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25 Suicide ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 Criminal justice outcomes ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Unsolved ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Charge ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Convictions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Sentences ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Section Summary --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 V Research and Data Priorities in the Prevention of Femicide of Older Women ----------------------- 28 Femicide of older women by strangers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 Femicide of older women by children ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30 Race/ethnicity and femicide of older women ------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 Older women have more to fear from current rather than estranged partners ------------------------------ 31 Intimate partner femicide-suicide of older women ------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Mental illness and femicide of older women -------------------------------------------------------------------- 32 Discounting older femicide victims in the courts --------------------------------------------------------------- 33 VI Recommendations Moving Forward ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 34 Appendix A ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 44 Appendix B ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 45 References -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 4 I Introduction “She was Toronto’s homicide No. 70 of 2019. We only found out after her husband died of COVID-19 in jail.” The above headline appeared in the Toronto Star on April 19, 2021. No. 70 was 75-year-old Zohra Derouiche who had been fatally stabbed in her Scarborough home on Dec. 10, 2019. Her husband was charged with second degree murder when Zohra died 10 days after the stabbing. Until April 19, 2021, almost 1.5 years later, the public did not know about her death. The Toronto police did not release any information at the time of the stabbing. They did not issue a press release when she died or when her husband was charged. There was no coverage of her femicide. Her name was never made public. No one knew what she looked like because no photo of her in life was ever published. The Toronto Star only learned about the case because her 85-year-old husband died in custody in March 2021 after contracting COVID-19. His death will now be the subject of a coroner’s investigation. It is not clear if any investigation will ever occur into Zohra’s death. The Toronto police provided no specific reason for their failure to report Zohra’s death. It is likely that both sexism and ageism played a role. This research paper is about women like Zohra – older women who are killed mostly by men, but also by acquaintances and strangers, and sometimes by those in professional caregiving roles. In June 2017, a former female nurse in Ontario was sentenced to life for eight