Hundreds gather at St. John's vigil to remember slain women
One by one, the names of 85 women were read aloud at a solemn and emotional vigil in a St. John's park on Thursday night, as hundreds honoured the memory of women who have been murdered or who are presumed to have been killed.
The In Her Name Vigil, held at the amphitheatre in Bowring Park, intended to shine a light on violence against women.
Volunteers read the names of the women, and described how they were killed.
While the list dates back to 1815, more than half of the women were killed in the last 30 years.
Organizer Jenny Wright of the St. John's Status of Women Council said many of the women come from small communities where domestic violence is often swept under the rug.
"We must come back and correct those wrongs and name them, and remember them because they were somebody — they were someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's mother, and they deserve to be recorded," Wright said.
Some of the names are publicly known, such as Amanda Power, whose boyfriend murdered her in 2008 before dismembering her body and disposing of it in a suitcase near their home on Warbury Street near downtown St. John's.
Many of the women's names, though, have not often been mentioned in public.
"Many of the women on this list were forgotten, were women who were murdered in tiny communities that were always talked about in hushed tones, but they were never recorded," Wright said.
The campaign has encouraged family members to identify relatives who were killed.
In February, a similar vigil honoured a list with 68 names. Wright said that more people have come forward recently, with four additional names to be added to the list for the next vigil.
With files from Krissy Holmes