March 8 was International Women's Day! I wanted to share with you this story about Missing Aborignal Women. Perhaps we can mark International Women's Day this year by remembering these women and asking our politicians why more isn't being done to stop this carnage.
MARCH 22 - SISTERS IN SPIRIT CAMPAIGN
Information compiled by SWAG:
Sisters in Sprit Campaign launches March 22, 2004 to draw attention to the tragedy of 500 missing aboriginal women in Canada and to the travesty that
there is so little awareness of this. Here in BC, 32 women have gone missing from the Highway of Tears between Prince Rupert and Prince George.
Information is from the following web site.
http://generalsynod.anglican.ca/ministries/committees/acip/sistersinspirit/getinvolved.htm
"Over the past 20 years, approximately 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing in communities across Canada. Yet government, the media, and Canadian society continue to remain silent.
"In Vancouver, more than 50 women went missing in that city's Downtown Eastside. Sixty percent were Aboriginal, and most were young. These were poor women involved in the sex trade. They struggled with drugs and alcohol.
Some suffered from the effects of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and many were victims of childhood sexual abuse. Every one of them grew up in a foster home. In other words, their lives bore all of the markings of the violence of colonization.
...
"The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) has been gathering the names and stories of Aboriginal women who have disappeared - not just in Vancouver, but also in Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Kenora, Thunder Bay, Fredericton, and so many other communities, large and small, across this country.
"Since the time that the Gitksan and Wet'suwet'en peoples began their historic court battle in British Columbia for the recognition of Aboriginal title, Aboriginal women - thirty-two in all - have gone missing along Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince George, now referred to as the Highway of Tears.
"Between 1988 and 1995, five young women -- Alberta Williams, Delphine Nikal, Ramona Wilson, Roxanne Thiara, and Lana Derrick - went missing along that stretch of highway.
"Despite community vigils and protests by the Terrace First Nations Council of Women and others, neither the police nor the media took seriously the disappearance of these women. Then in June of 2002, another young woman went missing. Nicole Hoar's disappearance immediately sparked media attention and government action. How did this case differ from the others? Nicole Boar was the first non-Aboriginal woman to disappear on the Highway of Tears