In Canada, 42% of Black women report experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, compared to 29% of racialized women overall (Cotter, 2021). These disparities reflect broader structural conditions that shape both exposure to violence and access to support. Yet Canadian research, policy, and programming continue to overlook the specific realities of Black women, reinforcing their marginalization within responses to IPV.
IPV is one of the most persistent public health issues in Canada. In 2024, over 128,000 people experienced police-reported IPV, and nearly 8 in 10 of those victims were women and girls (Statistics Canada, 2024). Rates have climbed 14% since 2018, and women experience this violence at 3.5 times the rate of men (Statistics Canada, 2024). Behind these national statistics is a reality that remains largely unaddressed: Black women face some of the highest rates of IPV in the country, and they encounter distinct barriers that make it significantly harder to access help.
Despite what is known about the prevalence of IPV among Black women in Canada, the available data remains incomplete. The Canadian government does not collect or publish disaggregated data showing the prevalence of IPV among Black women or other specific racialized groups (Duhaney, 2022a). Instead, racialized women are grouped together under the umbrella term “visible minorities,” a designation from the Employment Equity Act that collapses distinct communities into a single category despite vastly different experiences (Duhaney, 2022a).
Examining racialized as a whole obscures critical differences between groups. The overall rate of IPV among racialized women is 29%. In contrast, Black women report a rate of 42%, Arab women 44%, and Latin American women 47% (Statistics Canada, 2021). Meanwhile, Chinese women report 23% and Filipino women 18% (Statistics Canada, 2021). Treating these groups as interchangeable makes it difficult to understand the specific dynamics at play or to develop interventions that address the needs of each community.
The absence of race-specific data also renders Black women invisible in policy conversations. It creates barriers to documenting police mistreatment and systemic failures (Duhaney, 2022b) and limits the ability of advocates to push for targeted change. Organizations like the Battered Women's Support Services in British Columbia have launched initiatives such as the Colour of Violence project to address this gap (BWSS, 2022). However, these efforts are piecemeal responses to what should be a national priority.
Despite the limitations of available data, the existing evidence is concerning. Black women (42%) and Latin American women (47%) are significantly more likely to have experienced IPV than the racialized population overall (Cotter, 2021). When it comes to physical and sexual assault specifically, 41% of Black women and 51% of Latin American women report having experienced this violence in their lifetime (Cotter, 2021).
These numbers likely underestimate the true scope of the problem. Only 4% of racialized women who experienced IPV in the past year indicated that police became aware of it (Cotter, 2021). Most of the violence goes unreported, meaning available statistics capture only a fraction of what is occurring.
Why don’t Black Women Report?
The low reporting rate among Black women reflects a series of structural and systemic barriers that make seeking help feel risky
For many Black women, calling the police does not feel like calling for help; it feels like a risk. Black women’s interactions with law enforcement are shaped by systemic racism, including disproportionate surveillance of Black communities and wrongful arrests (Duhaney, 2022b). This contributes to a deep lack of trust in police, grounded in ongoing experiences of injustice within the criminal justice system (Duhaney, 2022b).
Some women choose not to report because they fear what might happen to their partners. The overrepresentation of Black men in prisons weighs heavily, and some women are reluctant to contribute to those statistics even while experiencing abuse (Ghania, 2025). Others worry about their own safety. Black women who call police to intervene in IPV incidents have been subjected to intense scrutiny and have been vulnerable to racialized and gendered police violence themselves (Duhaney, 2022b). In some documented cases, when Black women reported abuse, they were the ones charged while the perpetrator faced no consequences (Gomes, 2023).
This concern is well-founded. Since the implementation of mandatory arrest and charging policies in Canada, there has been an increase in women being arrested in IPV situations (Duhaney, 2022a). Research examining Black women who were criminalized after calling police found that of 15 women arrested, 13 were charged solely with perpetrating violence, despite acting in self-defence in the context of ongoing abuse (Duhaney, 2022a). The criminalization of survivors disproportionately impacts Black women, Indigenous women, migrant women, and women living in poverty (Hoffer, 2024).
Racialized gender expectations also contribute to low reporting rates. The “strong Black woman” stereotype frames Black women as uniquely resilient, capable of enduring any hardship without complaint. On the surface, this might appear to be a positive characterization. In practice, it creates pressure to suffer in silence.
This stereotype impedes help-seeking by creating fear of being perceived as weak or vulnerable, or of not being believed (Hulley et al., 2023). It has racist underpinnings, having emerged in contrast to negative stereotypes of enslaved Black women, and it serves as an additional barrier that other women do not face (Hulley et al., 2023). Research has found that many Black women internalize this expectation, believing they should be strong enough to endure abuse without seeking outside help (Duhaney, 2022a). This belief influences not only whether women seek formal support, but also whether they confide in family and friends at all (Ghania, 2025).
For many women, leaving an abusive relationship is not simply emotionally difficult. It is financially constrained. For Black women facing economic marginalization, these barriers are compounded.
Research has consistently found that women with greater economic marginalization are more likely to experience IPV (Duhaney, 2022a). Black Canadians earn less than non-racialized Canadians across the board, and Black women earn the least of all groups (Gomes, 2023). Black adults are also less likely to be employed than the rest of the population (Duhaney, 2022a). These disparities persist for both recent immigrants and third-generation Canadians, pointing to systemic barriers rather than individual circumstances (Gomes, 2023).
Economic abuse frequently accompanies physical abuse. Perpetrators control their partners' access to employment, education, money, and housing (Gomes, 2023). When combined with Canada's housing affordability crisis and shelters frequently operating at capacity, many women face an impossible choice: remain in a dangerous situation or risk homelessness. Twenty-five percent of women experiencing homelessness cite domestic abuse as a contributing factor (Learning Network, n.d.).
Anti-Black racism in housing adds another layer of difficulty. Financial institutions are more likely to reject Black applicants for mortgages, even when their applications are otherwise identical to those of white applicants (Gomes, 2023). For Black women attempting to escape violence, the path to safe, stable housing contains obstacles that other women do not encounter.
When Black women do seek help, they often find that existing services were not designed with their experiences in mind. Research with African Nova Scotian women found that the majority do not report experiences of violence, in part because they rarely encounter workers who look like them or who understand the dynamics of their communities (Be the Peace Institute, 2023). Four in ten Black women in shelters report feeling isolated due to the lack of staff from similar backgrounds, which affects what they feel comfortable disclosing (Hulley et al., 2023).
Community engagement has consistently revealed a need for appropriate programming and services designed specifically for Black women (Be the Peace Institute, 2023). Organizations like Black Women Connect Vancouver have emerged to create spaces for healing and community building, but these efforts remain limited in scope and resources (Ghania, 2025). Adequate support services are scarce, particularly outside of major urban centres.
What is needed is not simply more services, but different kinds of services. Programs must be embedded within Black communities, designed with community input, and focused on both prevention and intervention (Duhaney, 2022a). Service providers need to actively remove barriers and work to earn the trust of women who have legitimate reasons to be skeptical (Duhaney, 2022a).
Addressing IPV against Black women requires changes at every societal level. Disaggregated race-based data is essential to understanding the full scope of the problem and developing evidence-based solutions. Statistics Canada is expected to publish new data on IPV among visible minority populations in 2026 (Ghania, 2025). Still, advocates must continue pushing for data collection that captures the experiences of specific communities rather than broad categories. Police and the justice system need to change how they respond to Black women experiencing violence. This includes not only training, but accountability measures that addresses how bias shapes decision-making, including the identification of primary aggressors in IPV situations (Duhaney, 2022b). The federal government has been developing a Black Justice Strategy since 2021 to address anti-Black racism in the criminal justice system (Ghania, 2025), though concrete outcomes remain to be seen. Most importantly, sustained investment in services designed by and for Black communities is essential. These programs must address the economic marginalization that keeps women trapped in dangerous situations. They must be accessible and responsive to the actual needs of the women they serve.
The continued prevalence of IPV among Black women in Canada is produced by structural conditions that remain unaddressed. Until these conditions are directly confronted, this pattern will persist.
Betty Andeghiorghis
References:
Battered Women's Support Services. (2022, May 10). BWSS engagement on proposed provincial race-based data collection. BWSS. https://www.bwss.org/bwss-engagement-on-proposed-provincial-race-based-data-collection/
Be the Peace Institute. (2023, January 31). Culturally responsive healthcare to address GBV within African NS communities. Be the Peace. https://www.bethepeace.ca/projects-1/t2wbwh2ltpcwccer54je8m4h8ylcjf
Cotter, A. (2021, May 19). Intimate partner violence: Experiences of visible minority women in Canada, 2018. Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article/00008-eng.htm
Gomes, C. (2023, March 2). Silenced and stripped: Confronting the racial wealth gap and gender-based violence against Black women in Canada. https://ccfwe.org/2023/03/02/silenced-and-stripped-confronting-the-racial-wealth-gap-and-gender-based-violence-against-black-women-in-canada/
Duhaney, P. (2022a). Criminalized Black women's experiences of intimate partner violence in Canada. Violence Against Women, 28(11), 2765-2787. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9361419/
Duhaney, P. (2022b). Contextualizing the experiences of Black women arrested for intimate partner violence in Canada. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(21-22). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9554381/
Ghania, Y. (2025, February 10). Black women face high domestic violence rates, but stigma keeps many silent, support groups say. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/black-survivors-domestic-violence-stigma-1.7452404
Hoffer, E. (2024, July 3). Mandatory charging policies and the criminalization of intimate-partner violence victims in Canada. WomanACT. https://womanact.ca/mandatory-charging-policies-and-the-criminalization-of-intimate-partner-violence-victims-in-canada/
Hulley, J., Bailey, L., Kirkman, G., Gibbs, G. R., Gomersall, T., Latif, A., & Jones, A. (2023). Intimate partner violence and barriers to help-seeking among Black, Asian, minority ethnic and immigrant women: A qualitative metasynthesis of global research. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 24(2), 1001-1015. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10012394
Learning Network. (n.d.). Women, intimate partner violence, and homelessness. Learning Network. https://www.gbvlearningnetwork.ca/our-work/issuebased_newsletters/issue-22/index.html
Statistics Canada. (2024, October 28). Trends in police-reported family violence and intimate partner violence in Canada, 2024. The Daily. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/251028/dq251028a-eng.htm
Statistics Canada. (2021, May 19). Intimate partner violence among diverse populations in Canada, 2018. The Daily. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210519/dq210519c-eng.htm
