The Peter Jaffe Lectures on Ending Domestic Violence
About the event
This hybrid event will be available via livestream or in-person. The keynote lecture will be delivered in English but for our online audience, French simultaneous interpretation will be available as well as closed captioning in both languages.
About the speaker
Dr. Jane Pillinger is an independent researcher, writer and policy adviser specialising in gender equality and gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work. She has an academic background in social policy and is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Policy and Criminology at the Open University, and formerly a Visiting Professor in Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. She previously served as specialist adviser to the House of Commons Employment Select Committee and has advised the International Labour Organization, the European Commission, the European Parliament, UN Women, and European and global trade union federations, employers and employer organisations. She contributed to the development and implementation of the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) and Recommendation No. 206. Her books include Stopping Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work (Agenda/Columbia University Press, 2022, co-authored) and Collective Bargaining and Gender Equality (2019, co-authored). She also authored a global report for the ILO (2024) on trade unions' implementation of ILO C190 in collective bargaining, making a strong case for the role of joint initiatives. She has written landmark policy and guidance documents on domestic violence as a workplace issue for organisations such as the EU’s occupational safety and health body (EU-OSHA), the European Trade Union Institute, the global business network Business Fights Poverty, and several large companies and global unions. Her research and training on domestic violence as a workplace issue has informed legislation, collective agreements and employer policy in Europe and internationally.
Event Details
- December 2, 2026
Lecture and moderated Q&A |
3:00 – 4:30 pm ET
Reception for in-person guests |
4:30 – 5:30 pm ET - Delta Hotels London Armouries, 325 Dundas St, London, ON N6B 1T9
If you would like to attend this event, please register online.
Register HereContact
1-800-258-6896
Keynote: Domestic violence in the world of work: International developments and what comes next
Over the past two decades, domestic violence has been progressively reframed from a private matter at the margins of employment relations into a legitimate concern of labour law, occupational safety and health, and industrial relations, situating it as one of the core dimensions of gender-based violence and harassment at work. This shift in recognition is significant, but also fragile. This lecture takes stock of the transformation and asks what comes next.
The lecture will trace the international architecture that consolidated the field, beginning with the ILO Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190), the first international instrument to recognise that domestic violence affects the world of work, and Recommendation No. 206, which sets out mitigation measures including leave, flexible working, protection from dismissal and workplace risk assessment. The lecture then turns to Europe, where the EU Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence now sits alongside a widening cluster of national paid family and domestic violence leave entitlements, and to the initiatives taken by employers, business and trade unions that have pushed the policy debate well beyond compliance. An important role has been played by Canada in this space, notably through the pan-Canadian Domestic Violence at Work survey, led from this Centre, which put hard numbers on what advocates had long argued that abuse follows people to work, that co-workers see it, and that employers bear part of its cost. That evidence, along with trade union advocacy, shaped Canadian legislation on paid domestic violence leave, and it fed directly into the ILO C190.
Against this background, the lecture will assess the evidence base through costing studies, prevalence surveys, and evaluation of what impact workplace interventions have and how they change outcomes for survivors of domestic violence.
The lecture will centre on the implementation gap and three arenas for future action. Governments confront the twin problems of C190 enforcement and transposition capacity at a moment when the fiscal and political space for gender equality policy is contracting rather than opening. Employers must move from policy adoption to demonstrable effectiveness and impact, a shift that raises questions of due diligence, supply-chain reach, and the particular issues for small enterprises. Joint union–employer initiatives, including workplace policies, joint occupational safety and health committees, collective agreements, global framework agreements, and sectoral agreements, can scale good practice and importantly help shift domestic violence into the occupational safety and health space.
Finally, the lecture maps emergent challenges, including technology-facilitated abuse; hybrid and platform work, which have blurred the home–workplace boundary beyond recognition; deepening understandings of coercive control and economic and financial abuse; and the position of workers in precarious employment and those outside a formal employment relationship. It will finish with what the next phase of this field requires in terms of a research and policy agenda to match these challenges.
History of the Peter Jaffe Lectures
The Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children launched a lecture series in 2021 to honour Dr. Peter Jaffe, a psychologist and professor emeritus at the Faculty of Education. Dr. Jaffe was a founding partner in the creation of the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children in 1992 and was the Academic Director from 2005-2021. He has influenced generations of researchers, mental health professionals, lawyers, judges, school systems, families, and children. The Peter Jaffe Lectures on Ending Domestic Violence takes place annually and invites an anti-violence researcher to present a public lecture on their research.
The inaugural lecture took place on December 6, 2021 by Dr. Peter Jaffe on Protecting children from domestic violence: It takes the Whole Community.
2025 Lecture
Keynote: Gender-Based Violence and Violent Extremism
Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss Professor,
American University Founding Director, Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL)
In dozens of incidents from North America to Norway to New Zealand, an increasing number of gender-motivated attacks linked to misogynist and male supremacist ideologies, including those associated with the "incel" (involuntarily celibate) movement, have explicitly targeted and killed women and gender diverse communities. These acts of violence reflect a growing intersectionality of gendered violence with violent extremism and mirror the rise of other forms of gender-based violence in both online and offline spaces.
In this lecture, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a leading expert on extremism, explains the importance of recognizing and calling out the thread of misogyny running through these attacks. She offers essential strategies that we can use in our everyday lives to address and respond to gendered hate and violence, mapping a pathway to building healthier, more inclusive spaces for everyone.
Keynote: Keeping children visible in domestic violence research, policy and practice: What have we learned in 30 years?
In 1986, Peter Jaffe with colleagues authored a seminal analysis of children’s experiences of living with domestic violence. Their work made visible the need to focus on preventing, responding and advocating for children in this context. More than 30 years later, we need to ask ourselves how successful has research, policy and practice in this area been? Have we failed these children? What would be the hallmarks of success? This lecture raises these questions exploring both the hurdles and the facilitators in the actions to respond to children and young people living with domestic violence and charting a path for the future.
Cathy Humphreys is Honorary Professor of Social Work at University of Melbourne. A multi-million dollar program of research in the areas of domestic and family violence and out of home care has been sustained since 2006 and supported through 20, Category, Australian Research Council grants and numerous other grants from government, philanthropy and community sector organisations.
Developing the knowledge base to support practice and policy developments in the areas of domestic and family violence, as well as that of vulnerable children in out of home care drive the research program with her team at University of Melbourne. Seven projects in the past 8 years have worked with the Safe & Together Institute using practice-led, action research through facilitated multi-stakeholder workshops and Communities of Practice.
This research highlights the impact on, and importance of attending to children in the context of domestic violence. She worked at the University of Warwick for 12 years before returning to Australia in 2006. For 15 years she worked as a social worker.
2023 Lecture
Keynote: Strong Connections: Gender-Based Violence and Mass Casualties
Emma Cunliffe, LLB, LLM, PhD Professor at the Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia and Research and Policy Director for the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission
The Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission was tasked with examining the events of April 18 to 19, 2020, when the most lethal mass shooting in Canadian civilian history occurred. The Commission stated that “for far too long, we have misperceived mass violence as our greatest threat without considering its relationship to other more pervasive forms of violence. We do so at the expense of public safety and community well-being.” In this lecture, Dr. Emma Cunliffe, who served as the Commission’s director of research and policy, explores these connections and the responses needed to prevent further tragedy.
2022 Lecture
Keynote: Children bereaved by domestic homicide: The implications for home, relationships and identity
John Devaney, PhD is the Centenary Professor of Social Work and Dean of the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
When a parent is killed by their partner, their children experience multiple losses. One parent is deceased, the other is detained, on the run or has died by suicide, and the home has often become a crime scene. Post-homicide, key decisions have to be made regarding: where children will live; whether they will have contact with the perpetrator; and how to support children in the longer-term. Decisions on these and other issues have far reaching consequences while professionals often have little training/experience, and are often unclear about their role. Caregivers are central support figures, often with little assistance. Extended families often become spaces of contestation. Dr. Devaney’s lecture explores what we know about these issues and the implications for children in relation to their practical care, and their longer term sense of identity and relationships with significant others.
2021 Lecture
Keynote: Protecting children from domestic violence: It takes the Whole Community
The Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children launched a lecture series to honour Peter Jaffe, a psychologist and professor emeritus at the Faculty of Education. Dr. Jaffe was a founding partner in the creation of the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children in 1992 and was the Academic Director from 2005-2021.
He has influenced generations of researchers, mental health professionals, lawyers, judges, school systems, families, and individual children. The Peter Jaffe Lectures on Ending Domestic Violence which takes place annually, invites an anti-violence researcher to present a public lecture on their research.
“I’m extremely honoured to be recognized with the creation of this lecture series,” Jaffe said. “It’s my hope that these lectures will provide researchers, stakeholders and the public with opportunities to learn about how we can end domestic violence in our communities.” “Professor Jaffe has been instrumental in highlighting the problem of domestic violence and providing responses on how we, as a society, can overcome this societal problem,” Education Dean, Donna Kotsopoulos, said. “These lectures will give world-class researchers a chance to showcase what we can do to end domestic violence.”
To learn more about how to donate, please email Rosie Triebner,
Director of Community Engagement & Development, Faculty of Education.
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For questions about the Jaffe Lectures, please email Megha Ajmani.
