Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Feds urged to stem tragedies
520 missing or killed aboriginal women
OTTAWA -- The federal government must get more involved if there is any hope of stemming the growing number of missing and murdered aboriginal women in this country, the head of the Native Women's Association of Canada said Thursday.
Beverley Jacobs fought tears during a Parliament Hill press conference where she released the second report of the Sisters in Spirit initiative that shows 520 aboriginal women were murdered or went missing in Canada since 1970.
More than half of the cases occurred since 2000, and 71 of them were women from Manitoba. Just over two-thirds of the total have been found dead, and about 25 per cent are still missing. In 45 per cent of the cases where women were found dead, nobody has been charged.
"This issue has been one of the most detrimental since colonization," Jacobs said.
The report tells the stories of many of the women, and the common threads between them, in particular the struggles their families had getting anyone to care when their daughter, sister, mother or friend disappeared.
Jacobs said it's as if society is ready to disregard the missing women as "garbage."
"We know they're not garbage," she said.
Sisters in Spirit was given a five-year mandate in 2005 and $5 million in funding from the federal government to research, document and publicize the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada.
Jacobs said since Sisters in Spirit began its work, there have been some marginal improvements in the treatment of missing and murdered native women by police, the media and the public.
She said it's obvious how different the response is when a non-aboriginal person goes missing.
She cited the case of Brandon Crisp, 15, who ran away from his home in Barrie, Ont., last fall after a fight with his parents about his video games. The response from police, volunteers and the media was huge.
"It was plastered across the national and international pages," Jacobs said.
Two months earlier, Maisy Odjick, 16, and Shannon Alexander, 17, disappeared from the Maniwaki, Que., area just north of Ottawa.
Jacobs said Odjick's mother was floored by the response to Brandon Crisp's disappearance when her family could get very little reaction from the media on her daughter's case.
"It's societal indifference," Jacobs said. "We're still dealing with racism."
The only way to change that, said Jacobs, is if Ottawa becomes more engaged.
If the minister of public safety does not do something, more women will continue to go missing, Jacobs said. "This government needs to take it seriously and so does society."
She said she needs the ministers of justice and public safety to establish national policies for how missing-persons' cases are to be handled and to educate police officers about the issues facing aboriginal women and about native culture in general.
"These are the basics even front-line officers need to understand when they are dealing our people," Jacobs said.
A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan passed a request for comment over to Helena Guergis, the minister of state for the status of women. Her spokeswoman was unable to provide a response by deadline.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 1, 2009 A6
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