Establish a Canada-wide system of collecting and co-ordinating information on missing women. Ensure that all police jurisdictions have uniform policies and procedures on dealing with missing persons, with an emphasis on compassion, cultural sensitivity and respect. Implement programs to help aboriginal girls and women take better paths before they are put in harm’s way.
The Native Women’s Council of Canada, in pushing for action from the federal government, compiled a list of 582 murdered and missing aboriginal women, based on 2010 statistics. The number, it turns out, is twice that figure, according to the RCMP.
RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson confirmed the force has uncovered 1,186 cases of missing or murdered aboriginal girls and women. Of those, 1,017 have been murdered since 1980 and 169 are missing, going back to 1952.
Any murder should be of concern, but aboriginal women suffer disproportionately — although they make up only four per cent of the female population of Canada, they are the victims in the majority of cases of murdered and missing women.
According to The Tragedy of Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women in Canada, a paper compiled by the Sisterwatch Project of the Vancouver Police Department and the Women’s Memorial March Committee, aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely to die a violent death than non-aboriginals.
It’s an issue that strikes close to home. More than half of the cases have occurred in the western provinces, 28 per cent in B.C. alone. The Robert Pickton case — in which the mass killer was convicted of murdering six women from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, but but has been implicated in dozens of others — emphasized the need for better police co-ordination and a more empathic attitude toward the disappearances and deaths of marginalized women.
Like Pickton’s victims, some of the dead and missing were sex-trade workers, aboriginal and drug addicts. But it’s reprehensible to draw the conclusion that a missing or murdered aboriginal woman is a prostitute or drug addict. And even if the facts indicate such a finding, justice is supposed to be blind. It should not value (or devalue) one human life more than another.
Yet we cannot be blind to the fact that aboriginal women are more likely to end up in trouble than their non-aboriginal counterparts. That is why it is essential to address the factors that can lead to prostitution and addiction: poverty, the lingering effects of residential schools, domestic violence, cultural erosion.
Perhaps Harper is right — ample studies are available, including the research and recommendations compiled by the Sisterwatch Project. It is time to examine and implement those recommendations, which include removing barriers to reporting across jurisdictions, establishing a 1-800 reporting system and a database that all police forces can access, and efforts to promote better relations between police agencies and aboriginal communities.
Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has said the government is doing something, spending $25 million over the next five years to combat violence against aboriginal women and girls. But that’s merely a renewal of funding, and it’s less than the government committed to spending on commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, an event of dubious significance and one that not many Canadians care about.
It’s not about statistics — it’s about daughters, sisters, mothers and suffering families. We should care about the value and sanctity of every human life.
