Report warns number of young femicide victims in Ontario rising

Although minors who lose their lives to femicide are often young girls, OAITH's data also includes boys killed through intimate partner violence.

An advocacy group is warning that a growing number of children and youth are being killed in femicides in Ontario, with nearly one in five victims reported to be under 18 the past eight months.

Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH), which obtains its data using police and media reports, defines femicide as the gender-based killing of a woman, child, trans woman, two-spirit person or gender non-conforming individual where a man has been charged.

Although minors who lose their lives to femicide are often young girls, OAITH's data also includes boys killed through intimate partner violence.

"It's a shift from what we have seen in prior years," said OAITH's executive director Marlene Ham.

The organization recorded 42 confirmed femicides in Ontario from the end of November until the end of July, with 21 per cent of victims being minors. That's up from 38 femicides recorded within the same timeframe last year, with five of the victims under 18.