Gender-Based Violence Remains a Costly and Persistent Crisis
This blog is part of YWCA BC's Gender Equality Week series, which examines some of the most urgent challenges facing gender equality today. Despite decades of advocacy, policy reform and public awareness efforts, gender-based violence remains widespread across Canada and continues to disproportionately affect women and gender-diverse people.
Too often, gender-based violence is viewed as a private issue affecting individuals and families. In reality, it is a systemic problem with significant social and economic consequences. Understanding its true impact is essential to creating safer communities and advancing gender equality for all.
Gender-based violence is often discussed in terms of individual tragedies, but its effects are far-reaching. Our 2026 YWCA BC report The Cost of Inaction: Measuring the Economic Impact of Gender-Based Violence in BC shows that gender-based violence costs British Columbia an estimated $1.12 billion annually, affecting thousands of women and gender-diverse people through physical and sexual assault, harassment and femicide.
Our research found that physical and sexual assault account for nearly 90% of the costs linked to gender-based violence, including health-care expenses, policing, court proceedings, social services and lost workplace productivity. Governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year responding to gender-based violence, while businesses lose money when employees miss work, are less productive or leave their jobs.
The true cost is likely much higher than we know, because psychological abuse and many forms of coercive control remain underreported and difficult to measure.
The federal government similarly identifies gender-based violence as a persistent and deeply rooted issue that disproportionately affects women, girls, Indigenous women, racialized women, immigrants, refugees, people with disabilities and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. In recent years, Canada has invested more than $820 million and committed additional ongoing funding to support prevention efforts, survivor services and justice system reforms.
Yet the continued need for these investments highlights an uncomfortable reality: progress toward gender equality has not eliminated violence. Instead, persistent misogyny, discrimination and unequal power structures continue to create conditions in which violence can flourish.
Whether it appears as online misogyny, attacks on reproductive rights, the persistent neglect of women's health, or the continuing epidemic of gender-based violence, the message is the same: gender equality cannot be assumed to be permanent. Rights and protections that were fought for over decades can stagnate, weaken or be actively challenged. Understanding these warning signs is the first step toward ensuring that progress moves forward rather than backward.
Gender-based violence is not only a human rights issue. It is a public health, economic and social issue that affects all of our communities. Understanding its true cost is an important step toward creating effective solutions and strengthening the systems, policies and supports needed to prevent violence and support survivors.
Read YWCA BC's report, The Cost of Inaction: Measuring the Economic Impact of Gender-Based Violence in BC, to learn more about the far-reaching impacts of gender-based violence and the urgent need for prevention and survivor supports.
At YWCA BC, we advocate for policies and systemic change that advance gender equality, prevent gender-based violence and create safer, more equitable communities. Donate to support our advocacy and help turn evidence into action.
