The Ottawa Police Service is investigating the death of a longtime employee with the Royal Canadian Navy in what the police force on Monday called a “femicide” — the first time it has used the term.
A police statement identified the victim as 47-year-old Jennifer Zabarylo of Ottawa.In a statement to Media, the Department of National Defence confirmed the woman, who a spokesperson referred to as Jennifer Edmonds-Zabarylo, was a civilian employee of the department and “a longtime member of the Royal Canadian Navy headquarters team.”“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of her tragic death, and we are offering support to her family and colleagues,” the statement said.
A Linkedin page for Zabarylo said she worked as a business planner and comptroller for the navy, beginning in 2018.Michael Zabarylo, 55, has been charged with second-degree murder and appeared in court Monday, police said.The case is being considered a “femicide” — a term generally defined as the killing of a woman or girl based on their gender — as it “occurred in the context of intimate partner violence,” police said.
The exact nature of the relationship was not disclosed.An OPS spokesperson told Media the case marks the first time the force has used the term “femicide” to describe a homicide investigation.The spokesperson said the term’s use stems from ongoing input from violence against women workers and advocates who regularly collaborate with police on their approach.
In 2022, while announcing the renaming of its partner assault unit to the intimate partner violence unit, then-interim police chief Steve Bell said the force would begin incorporating “the use of terms like femicide” in how it speaks about violence against women.“We have learned that language matters, particularly when it comes to education and support,” Bell said in a statement.
No further information was provided on the circumstances of Jennifer Zabarylo’s death, as the case is now before the courts.
Femicide is a relatively new term to describe gender-based killings that is not legally defined in Canada’s Criminal Code. Advocates for reducing gender-based and intimate partner violence have called on the government to pursue the Criminal Code definition.
Femicide laws have been enacted in Latin American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Peru in recent years. Mexico, which has one of the highest rates of female homicides in the world, began documenting femicides in 2012 and has pursued measures to reduce the killings.
There is little data on gender as a motivating factor in homicides in Canada, though the number of homicide cases with female victims has been on the rise.
Statistics Canada’s latest annual report on police-reported crime, released last month, shows that the number of female homicide victims last year was nearly identical compared with 2022 — 205 women killed — despite a 14 per cent drop in total homicide victims over the same period.
Homicides where women were the victims are up 31 per cent from 2019, compared with a 12 per cent increase for all other genders.