Led by women and survivors, as well as Indigenous people with hand drums, more than 200 people took to the streets of downtown Sudbury on Thursday evening for the Take Back the Night march.
The theme this year focused on stopping oppression, with a broader focus, organizers said, recognizing many groups struggle with different barriers.
“Take Back the Night began as a way to draw attention to the violence that women experience, particularly fear of walking alone at night due to sexual violence,” Laur O’Gorman, one of this year’s organizers, is quoted as saying in a news release.
“Over the years, it has expanded to include the different ways that violence impacts women, such as the high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and colonization as a violent practice, racist violence towards racialized women with the growing white supremacist movements, homophobic violence against queer and trans folks, and the high rate of violence against women with disabilities.”
Marchers' values are “anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-oppressive,” the release said.
O’Gorman said “this year’s march focuses on anti-oppression because while all women face a high risk of sexist violence, different groups of women face different risk factors and types of violence than others.”
