Ad campaign draws attention to missing women

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This article was published 21/03/2011 (5291 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The faces of 10 murdered and missing women will be staring out at Manitobans in an advertising campaign designed to draw attention to their plight.

The campaign – which launched Monday on transit advertisements and billboards across the province – is the first of its kind in Canada and could potentially attract new information on the unsolved cases. The advertisements feature black-and-white photos of ten Aboriginal women, five missing and five murdered, against the background of a red sunset.

For the mother of 17-year-old Cherisse Houle, whose body was found face-down in an RM of Rosser field in 2009, the poster bearing her daughter’s face is meaningful.

“Now, finally, I think that they’re paying attention,” said Barbara Houle, the mother who said families of victims grapple with “a lot of frustration.”

“(It’s) like nobody’s listening to you, nobody cares,” she said, after speaking at the launch of the ad campaign at a Winnipeg Transit facility. To date, Mounties have made no arrests in connection with the teenager’s death, which they call suspicious.

The campaign focuses on cases dating back to 1991, when the beaten body of 19-year-old Glenda Morrisseau, a high school student, was found in St. Boniface.

It also features photos of 20-year-old Amber Guiboche, who was a last seen getting into a red truck near William Avenue and Isabel Street in November, and 51-year-old Mildred Flett, a mother of five who hasn’t been heard from for nine months.

The roughly $60,000 campaign was organized by the province’s Aboriginal and Northern Affairs department, and points people with information on the cases to contact Crime Stoppers.

“One of the things that you hear time and time again from families is that they’re not afforded the attention that they should be afforded,” said Nahanni Fontaine, special advisor on Aboriginal women’s issues to the province.

“(We wanted to) engage the public in having a little bit more compassion and empathy on this issue, because it’s everybody’s issue,” she said.

The advertisements – which read “What if She was Your Daughter?” – will be inside Winnipeg, as well as in places like Dauphin, Flin Flon, Minnedosa, Swan River, The Pas, Morden, and Brandon.

Gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca