Iqaluit (Sep 20/04) - Rhoda Maghagak, 49, was found dead in her home on March 12 in Cambridge Bay.

Leanne Irkotee, a 22-year-old, was found dead in Rankin Inlet on April 23. Then Iqaluit was rocked again when Sylvia Lyall was discovered dead in her apartment in June. Both victims' common-law husbands were charged with their murders.

These are just a few pictures of violence from three of Nunavut's biggest communities that illustrate why so many women across Nunavut have decided enough is enough.

Women with the support of various organizations are banding together by organizing Take Back the Night marches and coffee houses.

Iqaluit is taking the initiative, but organizers want all communities in Nunavut to organize their own marches and coffee houses.

"We want this to be territory wide," said Amanda Ford, who works for the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and is one of the driving forces behind Iqaluit's march on Sept. 30.

"We felt we had to do something to address the high levels of violence in the territory."

Unlike other parts of Canada, men are invited to take part in Nunavut's events. Ford has faxed, e-mailed and called every hamlet in Nunavut about this event. Now Ford and fellow organizer, Joyce Aylward, executive director of the Qullit Status of Women Council, wait to hear back from everyone.

"One of the challenges is getting the word out to all the communities," said Aylward. "It is important that participants in Take Back the Night are not just women, but the men as well and the children. Violence effects everyone in the community."

They have called it Stop the Violence, a slogan that Ford has printed on stickers and posters in English and Inuktitut.

Nunavut stats

Statistics Canada reports that there were 1,494 crimes of violence in Nunavut in 2003.

Aylward laments that getting statistics on how many women are being assaulted in Nunavut is hard because of the way statistics are gathered. But according to information she's gotten from the RCMP, Aylward said domestic assaults have increased "every year since Nunavut was created" in 1999.