BURSTOn a chilly January morning, hundreds of mourners, advocates and community members congregated outside the Victoria courthouse for a melancholic gathering, remembering victims of intimate partner violence.
The crowd was drawn to the courthouse by the Jan. 21 appearance of Muhammed Basar, who was charged with the second-degree murder of his former partner Laura Gover. The 41-year-old was found dead in her Saanich home Jan. 5.
Gover was the mother of two daughters and was lauded as a highly respected instructor at Camosun College. A GoFundMe started by a family friend has raised over $300,000 for her daughters.
Records indicate Basar had previously breached a protection order placed against him at the time of their divorce. That charge has not been proven, and he has not been found guilty of any crimes.
“For too long, our systems have been designed around institutional comfort rather than survivor safety. Victims are asked to navigate complex bureaucracies, to wait for help due to funding gaps and overburdened services, to prove themselves over and over, while those who perpetrate violence face systems built around their convenience,” said Bahar Dehnadi executive director of the Victoria Women’s Transition House, at the event on Wednesday, Jan. 21.
Battered Women’s Support Services executive director Angela Marie MacDougall said since August 2024, 45 women have been killed in B.C.
“Similarly to Laura Gover, these deaths did not happen due to ignorance. They happened during a period when all levels of government were acknowledging the risk, commissioning reports, and promising reform. And that matters because it tells us this is not about a lack of evidence,” said MacDougall.
The two organizations, along with the Cridge Centre for the Family and the Cowichan Women Against Violence Society, made five asks to the three levels of government, which they consider the minimum conditions for women’s safety.
They call for mandatory risk assessments across police, the courts, and child protection to identify dangers early; for municipal gender-based task forces; for stabilized core funding for frontline anti-violence services – or a minimum 15 per cent bump in emergency funding; they want long-term prevention campaigns so the public can identify and understand coercive control, strangulation, and other indicators of escalating risk; and for a dedicated gender-based violence lead within the public safety and attorney general’s office.
“A woman’s fear is a risk factor that needs to be taken seriously. She needs protection that is comprehensive, monitored, and enforced, and we want perpetrators to be held responsible right from the time she discloses her fear,” said Marlene Goley of the Cridge Centre for the Family. “Our systems need to stop putting all the responsibility for protecting herself on the victim. This is impossible for her at best, lethal at worst.”
Basar will re-appear in court on Feb. 4.
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