Cases of killing among women and girls, known as femicide, are rapidly increasing across Canada as a report details the killing of more than 800 women and girls since 2018.

The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA) also released its annual report on Thursday detailing the alarming rise in violent deaths among women and girls between 2018 and 2022 in Canada.

According to the report, 850 women and girls were killed in the past five years, equivalent to the killing of one woman or girl every 48 hours. Additionally, between 2019 and 2022 there was a 27 percent increase in deaths of suspected male perpetrators.

While not all deaths identified suspects, 82 percent of identified persons were male, while 18 percent of suspects were female. The most common cases of female killings are intimate partner violence, followed by family, then friends and neighbors.

Women aged 24 to 34 often constitute the largest or second largest age group of victims, but the average age of a woman killed by a man is 42 years, while the average age of male suspects is 37 years -.

The report also estimates that one in five female victims killed by a man were Indigenous, about 19 percent. Among the victims, a total of 868 children were left motherless.

Human rights advocates have been calling on Canada to recognize femicide in Canadian criminal law or to enact it in legislation to provide legal protection for women and girls, especially Indigenous and Black women and part of other racialized communities.

For her part, CFOJA founder Mirna Dawson said in a press release: "We really wanted to address the issue so that there is a better public understanding."

According to the report, the term femicide has been applied in 22 countries in some legislative bodies or used to classify certain crimes. Canada has also not yet signed a global treaty aimed at establishing initiatives to investigate and eliminate femicide, despite its commitment to do so in 2018, as stated in the report. Of the 35 countries that made this commitment, Canada is one of three countries that have not fulfilled it.

Also recently, the Mass Casualty Commission (MCC) report, which investigates the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting, recommended in its report that the government declare gender-based violence an epidemic after it was revealed that the shooter was abusive and controlling of his wife and the women around him.

Millennium Challenge Corporation Commissioner Michael MacDonald told reporters on Thursday: "Women, through community organizations, have borne the burden of protecting women almost exclusively for far too long," adding: "Men who are leaders in society must call it what it is, it is an epidemic."