Why Didn't She Just Leave?

Coercive Control through Language

This module dismantles the question that treats leaving as a simple decision. It documents the violence that makes leaving dangerous: coercive control, stalking, threats, surveillance, and institutional failures that leave women unprotected.

This module centers survivors of domestic violence and surviving family members when violence became lethal, examining not only violence inside relationships but institutional responses: police, courts, custody decisions, media narratives, and institutional refusal to act.

Leaving does not end the danger. It changes it. We see this clearly in so many cases. Jennifer Viater did leave her abusive husband. The Ontario courts ignored her pleas to take action to protect her daughter Keira Kagan from mandated unsupervised visits with her father. The danger moved from Jennifer to her daughter Keira. Keira was found dead next to her father's body at the base of a cliff in a Milton, Ontario in February 2020.