Catherine Murray, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies chair, and Jen Marchbank, director of Explorations in Arts and Social Sciences, at SFU can comment on a new report on violence against women and children. The study, released yesterday, links funding cutbacks for women’s programs to troubling rates of domestic violence.

Katherine Rossiter, an SFU criminologist and associate director of the university’s Feminist Research Education Development Action centre for research on violence against women and children, authored the report. Murray, Marchbank, Rossiter and other partners are hosting Red Shoes, Green Belts and White Ribbons on Dec. 8, a gender violence research fundraiser and awareness raising campaign. The breakfast event coincides with a 16-day global activism campaign against gender-based violence. Today is the anniversary of an enraged gunman’s 1989 slaying of 14 women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique. Dec. 10 is International Human Rights Day.

Catherine Murray, 604.838.5272 (cell), 778.782.5322, murraye@sfu.ca
Jen Marchbank, 604.996.6195 (cell), 778.782.7607, jmarchba@sfu.ca