Remembering missing women By DeLynda Pilon - Prince George Free Press Published: August 18, 2013 5:00 AM
http://www.pgfreepress.com/news/219826711.html The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights spent three days in Prince George last week talking to families of missing and murdered women, bringing more international attention to an issue that has been of concern for a long time, especially among the Aboriginal population, and highlighted recently by the Human Rights Commission which issued a report breaking down many of the barriers facing indigenous women in northern B.C. Mavis Erickson, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council's Women's Advocate, said she was happy to agree to the visit and help set it up. She added there was a lot of hope issues concerning Aboriginal women and their vulnerability would be addressed when the Oppal Commission was struck; however it seemed to primarily focus on the Pickton case, adding northern B.C., with its infamous Highway of Tears cases, as an afterthought, then making it difficult to impossible for many organizations that advocate for northern B.C.'s Aboriginal women to participate. Considering it offered no funding opportunities for them to attend the inquiry. Now, she added, the hope is there will be a national inquiry. "I participated in the Human Rights Watch investigation and helped in coordinating that," Erickson said. "I felt really strongly for women when the Oppal commission came along. A lot of organizations weren't able to get representation for the Oppal commission. It was really kind of a backhanded slap to people in the north." She added she thought investigations by international organizations might be a way of achieving what families in the north wanted. The Human Rights Watch gathered information and issued a report on various aspects of the issues Aboriginal woman face in northern B.C. Most recently the Inter American Commission on Human Rights expressed an interest at looking into local human rights violations concerning Aboriginal women, talking with families of the missing and murdered, and Erickson jumped at the chance to make that happen. "I immediately got in touch with the Inter American Commission through the Native Women's Association," she said. "They wanted to come after reading the Amnesty International report, Sisters in Spirit." She added the missing and murdered Aboriginal women in the province were numbered at 136 then, and a follow-up report puts the number at 180 in B.C. "Women are going missing and murdered in B.C. like nowhere else in the country. The government doesn't seem concerned and doesn't seem to have a plan, so it continues unchecked," Erickson said. "I think that the international organization bring new eyes to the problem. The problem a Canadian commission would have is that the sexism and racism is so deeply ingrained, people don't even recognize it in themselves. "I think indigenous women in Canada are despised and hated. As an example she talks about her niece taking a fall in Fort St. James, badly hurting her knees. Before the RCMP would help her, they made her take a Breathalyzer test. "Racism is just so commonplace, I think we normalized it," she said. "And when someone goes missing we never thought to go to the RCMP because they never really helped before. They were the ones who took us away (to residential schools)." Barbara Morin, president of the B.C. Native Women's Association, agrees. She said they were supposed to be a part of the Oppal commission, but weren't able to attend, even to give evidence. Now they are calling for a national inquiry as well. "A data base was started a number of years ago counting the number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. They got to 600, then had to stop due to a lack of funding," she said. "Most of the cases were in western provinces. Nearly half of the cases are unsolved, and we get more reported cases in different provinces on a daily basis." When the data stopped coming in, the association called for a national inquiry. At first there was resistance, but when provincial premiers met in July, they also supported the idea. "The cost of violence in Canada is extremely high," Morin said. "Every time we have to address a spousal violence report, it costs the taxpayer money. We have to find ways to reduce violence against women. Aboriginal women are five times more likely to experience violence than the national average. The root cause of violence is racism and poverty, and if the woman lives in a remote community, there is no such thing as an emergency shelter. "We have to ask if police proceed in a manner that gets a case of spousal violence to court. Right now women are scared to talk, they are scared to lose their kids. "A national inquiry would get to the root of what needs to be done in every community." She said the police need cultural training as well as a historical background of Aboriginal people. "They need to know how to deal with them," she said. "There is a general lack of access to justice for Aboriginal people. It's quite different for them." She added there is a need for family programs to address intergenerational problems, many of which are rooted in the residential school system. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Native News North List info{all lists}: http://nativenewsonline.org/natnews.htm Yahoo! 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