Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada needs to stop!
by Sierra Goodbird| For ELA 30| January
Photo of a woman holding a sign in EdmontonIn my culture, we learnt to respect our women, because they give us life. They are the superior leaders and have more power than men. The men's job was to protect our indigenous women, but in today's society, it's hard to protect them when they are sadly taken away from us too soon, and most of the time we can't solve their disappearance, or they won't solve our women's disappearance. When it comes to disappearances, the RCMP are the ones to turn to in these types of situations, right? When it comes to seeing a picture of a girl on a light pole, you should spread the message to your peers, family and friends, right?
The disappearance and murder of indigenous women have been an increasingly serious problem during the past ten years. Women are viewed in the Indigenous society as the embodiment of family and strength since they give us the gift of life. As an indigenous woman, these disappearances are not only unsettling but also fail to create a community where women may feel safe and trusted. More individuals in the general public need to be informed of these societal issues and what is happening to the indigenous community.
The government and the RCMP need to do a better job of not only educating the public but also supporting communities by visiting them to hear their concerns and publicly discussing these tragedies, rather than labelling them "runaways" and dismissing a case. Similar to a recent case involving a missing teenager from Cape Breton, Lorrain Whitman, a member of an indigenous women's group, reported that the police were too fast to label her as a runaway and did not want to issue an amber alert. She also stated "police have said they did not issue an amber alert because they thought the teenager left with him willingly". Whitman stated a 14 year old can't make that decision on her own and says that if a non-indigenous, wealthier child had been involved, the alert would have been sent right away. Police stereotyping indigenous missing girls as "runaways" to purposely slow down investigations when they are in great danger and the RCMP will not take action to make their jobs easier says a lot about their mindset and priorities. They stereotype that Indigenous women and girls are "drunks," or "runaways out partying," which led to an even larger loss of trust in the police.
Stated by Megan Jonhstone, "It is currently estimated that there are roughly 1,200 missing or murdered Indigenous women in Canada, although the true number is thought to exceed 4,000". With that stated, the growing numbers are extremely troubling, and the majority of these disappearances are still unsolved cold cases involving indigenous women.
Gladys Radek is a 65 year old survivor of RCMP abuse and residential school, a member of the Wet'suwet Nation, and an advocate of the fight to raise awareness of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada, shares her past about the RCMP. After she left the abuse of residential school, she found herself hitchhiking on the "highway of tears" where is located at 725-km length of Highway 16, between Prince George and Prince Rupert in BC, Canada, which is the location of numerous deaths and disappearances since 1970.
Gladys recalled being picked up by an RCMP officer and she found herself again being abused, but this time by an officer of the law. After she was sexually abused, the office told her ‘don’t bother reporting this because I’m a police officer and no one is going to believe you anyway’. Many women, especially those who were indigenous, lost faith in and felt unsafe around the RCMP as a result of this experience. This demonstrated that the RCMP lacked interest in resolving the problems facing towards indigenous people, specifically our women. That they abused their authority as law enforcement officers and failed to investigate these indigenous women who were murdered and missing seriously as they should have been.
"In Canada, Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than non-Indigenous women and girls." - Brandi Morin
For the journey toward justice for our women and girls, we all have a responsibility to be involved in these movements. Justice must be served to ALL of the victims, or our society and community may never recover. It doesn't take everyone to disappear for people to understand that they have lives. They need to know that none of us will ever go missing, although they might not be our sisters, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, cousins, or friends, but they are OUR people, OUR women because the future generation don't deserve to be worried and frightened in our society, where everyone must unite, we must educate and guide our future generations about this.
My response to all of this is that we need to educate the next generation as soon as they are able to understand it, spread the word about MMIWG movement to increase awareness, and most importantly towards the RCMP abuse and lack of interest of theses rising cases. We are closer to achieving justice for all of these women, they can finally be heard. When RCMP twists their words to make you believe you are in the wrong and basically convinces women like Gladys that it's their words over hers. But when you have years of proof it's still not enough for them, thinking young girls are just runaways and then closing a case, and purposely slowing the cases down.
The reason I'm so invested in this, is that there's a few women who have gone missing in my hometown, but the most well-known and recent incident occurred in 2019, before I moved to Saskatoon. Her name was Kendra, and she was well-liked and well-known across the Pas when she vanished. Everyone in our community was concerned and hopeful that someone would at least find her. At that point, I came to the realization how everyone had come together; it didn't matter who it was. Everyone had searched everywhere for her and some people had even checked on Kendra's family to comfort them during that summer; they had all been there for one another as a community, this whole situation bring a whole community together. However, three weeks later, when someone discovered Kendra's body, all of that hope was shattered. At that point, I had already left, but when I returned for a visit during the Christmas break, the town seemed to have lost all of it's previous brightness and felt more depressing. On august 5th 2020, Kendra's family host a memorial walk marking one year since her body was found, and around 100 people marched near the university college of the north campus where she was found to honor her and other missing indigenous women. Her family is still seeking justice for her.
"Kendara’s death was not an accident. We don’t want her to be just another statistic of the many missing and murdered to be ignored. Which is why today, August 6, we are hosting a Memorial Walk to show that we are not giving up. As long as there is no justice, we do not have peace" - Gloria Ballantyne-Packo (Kendara’s sister)
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