The Government of Canada describes gender-based violence as violence perpetrated based on a person’s gender, gender expression, gender identity or perceived gender. The description notes that gender-based violence is not limited to physical or sexual violence, but can also include attempts to degrade, control, humiliate, intimidate, coerce, deprive, threaten or harm someone due to their gender, gender expression, or perceived gender. Gender-based violence can be deadly and, even when it is not, its impacts can be long-lasting as well as intergenerational.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) started a movement called “Thursdays in Black” to highlight the effects of gender-based violence and rape, working to eliminate it. The movement has roots in the WCC’s Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women (1988–1998) and has grown from there.
It simply asks people to wear black each Thursday, along with a pin declaring that you are “part of the global movement resisting attitudes and practices that permit rape and violence.”
Thursdays in Black pins are available to order from the Women’s Inter-Church Council of Canada . Campaign badges are available to download and print on the WCC’s website here .
What can you do?
- Take part in the WCC’s “Thursdays in Black” movement by wearing black on Thursdays to spread awareness of the need to eliminate gender-based violence. Share your Thursdays in Black photos on social media, using the hashtags #ThursdaysinBlack and #WCC.
- Learn more about the movement on the WCC’s website as well as on The United Church of Canada’s website
- Visit the Social Action Hub to learn more about gender-based violence, including some of the ways it affects certain communities more strongly than others.
- Consider reading Why Work to Decolonize: A Study Guide on the National Inquiry’s Final Report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls