Chants against rape culture roared through Ottawa’s downtown core on Sunday as the yearly SlutWalk demonstration marched past Parliament.
Organized by the Purple Sisters Youth Advisory, and joined by community partners like Interval House of Ottawa, SlutWalk hopes to empower sexual violence survivors.
Amira Brehaut, who works with the Purple Sisters Youth Advisory, a group that increases awareness of young women’s issues in the community, said the stakes felt higher at this year’s SlutWalk following a “huge influx in hate” on the group’s social media posts.
“That’s also kind of what lights the fire under us, what makes us want to lean into community even more,” said Brehaut, a fourth-year University of Ottawa student.
SlutWalk was born in 2011 after a Toronto police constable told a York University class that women should stop dressing like “sluts” to avoid being victimized.
Since then, Ottawa’s yearly SlutWalk has opposed victim blaming and slut shaming, calling on the city to provide more services for survivors of gender-based violence.
“The spirit of SlutWalk is that for one day a year, we can take it upon ourselves to create a space where survivors can get up in front of a crowd and share what they’ve been through,” Brehaut said.
“They are immediately surrounded with a community of loving, supportive people who believe them and will uplift them.”
The rate of police-reported intimate partner violence in Ottawa has consistently increased since 2021, with 6,547 cases in 2023 and 6,636 cases in 2024, according to the Ottawa Police Service. Twenty-eight per cent of the 2024 victims were between the ages of 18 and 29.
“There is such a high demand for gender-based violence services in our city,” said Taylor Blewett, the public education officer at the Interval House of Ottawa.
Interval House provides support and shelter to survivors of gender-based violence but turned away more than 700 people over capacity limitations last year.
Brehaut said that everyone can play a role in this movement.
“It’s all of our responsibility, and Ottawa as a city’s responsibility, to turn that into a reality that exists every day.”
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Featured image by Farrah Philpot/the Charlatan.
