By the time a woman goes to a shelter, it’s often a last resort, said Lise Martin, executive director of the Canadian Network of Women’s Shelters and Transition Houses, which conducted the survey. “It’s rare that a woman will show up on the doorstep of a shelter where it’s a first incident or she hasn’t tried different alternatives.”

The shelter report cites Statistics Canada homicide data showing that a woman is killed by her current or former intimate partner an average of every six days in Canada. Death threats “are far more common,” the paper said. “Women seeking shelter from abuse are often doing so out of a very real sense of terror for the lives and safety of their children and themselves.”

Despite the uptick in violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mohini Datta-Ray wants to let women know that women shelters are safe during the pandemic.

“While the calls (for help) have gone up, the demands for shelters have dipped,” said Datta-Ray, the executive director of North York Women’s Shelter. “Part of that is that people are afraid shelters aren’t safe during COVID, they’re not certain shelters are even operating and there’s a lot of nervousness about being trapped in a shelter during a pandemic.”