“The families of missing and murdered Aboriginal women deserve answers and we deserve justice.”
- Melanie Morrison, whose 25-year-old sister Tiffany Morrison went missing in June 2006 in Kahnawake, outside Montreal. Tiffany's body was found in June 2010. Her murder remains unsolved.
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Videos of Family members speaking about their loved ones
“Every woman who has gone missing is someone’s daughter, someone’s mother, someone’s aunt or someone’s sister. We must never lose sight of the fact that they were loved and deserve to be valued.”
- Sandra Gagnon, whose sister Janet Henry went missing in Vancouver in 1997.
Lives at risk
According to a Canadian government statistic, young Indigenous women are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.
Indigenous women have long struggled to draw attention to violence within their own families and communities. Canadian police and public officials have also long been aware of a pattern of racist violence against Indigenous women in Canadian cities – but have done little to prevent it.
The pattern looks like this:
- Racist and sexist stereotypes deny the dignity and worth of Indigenous women, encouraging some men to feel they can get away with acts of hatred against them.
- Decades of government policy have impoverished and broken apart Indigenous families and communities, leaving many Indigenous women and girls extremely vulnerable to exploitation and attack.
- Many police forces have failed to institute necessary measures – such as training, protocols and accountability mechanisms – to ensure that officers understand and respect the Indigenous communities they serve. Without such measures, police too often fail to do all they can to ensure the safety of Indigenous women and girls whose lives are in danger.
Government Action
“There’s still a double standard when it comes to Aboriginal woman and girls. When is the government going to take action to make sure that every case of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls is thoroughly investigated?"
- Laurie Odjick, whose 16-year-old daughter Maisy disappeared from Maniwaki, Quebec in September 2008 along with her friend Shannon Alexander.
As of July 2011 the federal government has:
- Dedicated $10 million over five years to address violence against Aboriginal women and girls. In actuality, much of the the money is going toward police initiatives that track missing persons, but do not specifically focus on patterns of violence against Indigenous women. Even this initiative is undermined by the fact that police are still not required, or provided training and support, to ensure that police reports consistently and accurately record whether or not victims of crime and missing persons are Aboriginal. As a result, the true extent and nature of violence against Indigenous women will continue to be obscured.
- Delayed funding to the Native Women’s Associations of Canada’s “Sisters in Spirit” initiative, important research and advocacy work that the government itself has said has been vital in drawing attention to violence against Aboriginal women.
- Failed to implement a comprehensive national plan on stopping violence against Aboriginal women and girls. Instead, in July 2011 Federal Minister Rona Ambrose said, “I believe that the call for action on this that has happened in the last few years truly has been answered by the federal and provincial orders of government."
“Refusing to keep track of the numbers of our sisters and daughters who have been murdered or gone missing is just another way of ignoring this tragedy.”
- Gwenda Yuzicappi, whose 19-year-old daughter Amber Redman disappeared July 2005 in Ft. Qu’Appelle, east of Regina. Sadly, in May 2008 Amber was found murdered.
Recommendations
“When will the Canadian government finally recognize the real dangers faced by Indigenous women? Families like mine all over Canada are wondering how many more sisters and daughters we have to lose before real government action is taken.”
- Darlene Osborne, a relative of Felicia Solomon and Helen Betty Osborne.
In October 2010, the Native Women's Association of Canada, the Assembly of First Nations, the National Association of Friendship Centres, KAIROS, Amnesty International, and many others joined together to call for a comprehensive national plan of action. Such a national plan of action must:
- Ensure Indigenous women's access to justice, including effective and unbiased police response to all cases of missing and murdered women,
- Improve public awareness and accountability through the consistent collection and publication of comprehensive national statistics on rates of violent crime against Indigenous women,
- Provide adequate, stable funding to the frontline organizations that provide culturally-appropriate services such as shelter, support and counseling to help Indigenous women and girls escape from harm’s way,
- Address the root causes of violence against Indigenous women, including by closing the economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Impoverishment and marginalization has pushed many Indigenous women into environments and situations where the risk of violence is greatly increased.
- Eliminate inequalities in the services available to Aboriginal children, in particular, through the child welfare system.
Read more detailed recommendations here
Feature
Profiles of violence and discrimination against Indigenous women in Canada
Amnesty International’s research has focused on one often overlooked dimension of Indigenous women’s experience of violence: the violence that takes place in urban settings or the lives of women moving between reserves and urban settings. The stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada illustrate some of the common themes ... Read the stories
Updated: 2 August 2011