Red dresses donated to Manitoba Moon Voices ahead of an upcoming landfill demonstration

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This article was published 05/08/2023 (806 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Noreen Seivewright hopes her red dress will be one of thousands laid on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature later this month, in an effort to demand the provincial government search landfills near Winnipeg for potential remains of Indigenous women.

“The red dress represents passion, love, power, confidence and anger,” Seivewright said. “I want to see thousands and thousands and thousands of red dresses.”

Seivewright, a Métis woman living in Winnipeg, is planning to donate a red dress to Manitoba Moon Voices, which is organizing a public demonstration at the legislature on Aug. 27.

The non-profit organization issued a public plea for donations of red dresses Friday. The clothing has become a symbol of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada.

“The Indigenous community has been through enough. We need our relatives home,” the organization said in a press release.

“We are doing this to bring attention to the families of the (missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people) and as a way to call on all levels of government to work together and work with the families to search the Prairie Green Landfill and return Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) to their families.”

The Winnipeg Police Service believes Harris, Myran, and an as-of-yet unidentified woman (temporarily named Buffalo Woman), were slain by an alleged serial killer.

The womens’ remains may have been inadvertently transported by waste trucks to Prairie Green Landfill, in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, in May 2022.

After the demonstration, the dresses will be given to the families of Harris and Myran.

“It’s just so heart-wrenching for these families to go through this. These families really need to feel the support from the community; from the Indigenous people,” Seivewright said. “It affects us all.”

Moon Voices is accepting donations of red dresses from anywhere in Canada. They can be dropped off in person or by mail at the organization’s 301 – 286 Smith Street location.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca

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Tyler Searle
Reporter

Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press’s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.

Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.