A walk across Canada to raise awareness of the deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women is being organized by a Vancouver group, one of the aims being to secure a public inquiry into the long-standing issue.
The "Walk for Justice" will leave Vancouver on June 21, National Aboriginal Day, and is expected to arrive in Ottawa to coincide with the opening of Parliament on September 15.
The deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women in Canada have been going on for over forty years. Some have been murdered, some are missing presumed dead. Some seem to have disappeared into thin air.
Gladys Radek, an organizer of the walk, says 80 per cent of the 3,000 missing women in Canada are aboriginal. Radek's niece, 22-year-old Tamara Chipman, disappeared from Highway 16 — the infamous "Highway of Tears" in northern British Columbia — in 2006.
While the RCMP doubled the number of women who have gone missing along Highway 16 from nine to 18 last October, Amnesty International estimates at least 32 have disappeared. Radek, however, pegs it at 44, a number she arrived at through her own research.
All but one of the women who have gone missing on the highway is Aboriginal, and some First Nations leaders believe this fact should be given more attention by investigators.
However, in February 2006 the B.C. Solicitor General rejected the suggestion that the cases were given a lesser priority because most of the victims are Aboriginal. This is no comfort to Radek.
"Serial killers are targeting our women right across the country," she says. "The police, judicial system and all levels of government are failing to protect us as citizens of Canada."
While a number of the missing and murdered women were drug addicted prostitutes living out a desperate existence in some of the seediest districts across Canada, some had regular jobs or were attending university, says Radek.
"This is all a big stereotype and it's not fair to say that they were all facing addictions. I think it's wrong for people to assume this just because they were First Nations."
In 1996 a shocking government statistic showed that aboriginal women were five times more likely to die as a result of violence than any other group of women in Canada.
Neegann Aaswaakshin, community development coordinator for Sisters in Spirit, an initiative of the Native Women's Association of Canada, says the situation is now at crisis levels and poverty is a large part of the problem
Sisters in Spirit is giving a series of workshops in the hope of getting more action on the missing women cases, she says.
"[The workshops] provide education and awareness to the justice community about the high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women to really grab their attention so they will understand the gravity and critical nature of the situation."
While she was in Winnipeg giving a workshop last year, says Aaswaakshin, over the course of a mere four days seven new cases of missing aboriginal women were reported in that city. Some were teenagers; all were under the age of 30. A 2004 Amnesty International report cites a history of governmental policies in Canada that have torn apart Aboriginal families and communities, eventually propelling a large percentage of women into extreme poverty, homelessness and prostitution. The vulnerability of these women is in turn exploited by "indigenous and non-indigenous men to carry out acts of extreme brutality against them," stated the report. Aaswaakshin says a "racist attitude among the justice community" is not helping matters.
This is echoed by Joyce Green, a political science professor at the University of Regina who says "the reality of racism" means that institutions are less likely to take the problems of aboriginal women seriously.
"Until we can deal with the legacy of racism and continuing racism I don't think we're going to get very far in dealing with the traumas that indigenous women suffer," says Green.
Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre, spokesperson for the RCMP in B.C. and for the Missing Women's Task Force, agrees that progress has been slow in making an arrest in the Highway 16 disappearances but he denies that racism is a factor.
"There could be nothing further from the truth. This is not about race, not about gender. These are human beings whose lives were taken or who have disappeared and most likely met with foul play, and that's not what we're about."
Lemaitre, who recently had a meeting with some of the missing women's families, says the geography of the region poses a problem, adding that police are sharing resources on the missing women file nationwide.
Thanks to Project Kare, a joint task force between the RCMP and Edmonton police, 40-year-old Thomas Svekla was arrested in 2006 on suspicion of murdering two women in the Edmonton area. On Tuesday, Svekla was found guilty of killing Theresa Innes, 36, but not 19-year-old Rachel Quinney.
However, the search continues for one or several serial killers suspected of murdering more than 70 women whose bodies were found in the Edmonton area. Many of the women were Aboriginal, most of whom worked in the sex trade.
About 100 people will be leaving Vancouver for the walk to Ottawa, with more expected to join in along the way. A rally will take place on Parliament Hill on September 15.
Victoria resident Rose Henry, an outreach worker for homeless women, plans to take part in the walk "to remember the women from Victoria who have mysteriously vanished" over the years.
Henry herself was almost a statistic. She was attacked and left for dead in a dumpster in Alberta 26 years ago, naked in minus 36 degree weather.
"The walk is a part of my healing journey too," says Henry.
For more information on the Walk for Justice and to sign a petition, go to www.walk4justice.piczo.com .