[IPSM] Stolen Sisters: Amnesty International

[Robin Taylor]

A Globe and Mail article appears below, following an October 4 Amnesty
International News release.

The complete Stolen Sisters Amnesty International campaign regarding
discrimination and violence against Indigenous women in Canada can be read
about at http://www.amnesty.ca/stolensisters/

The Native Women's Association of Canada Sisters in Spirit campaign is available
at http://www.sistersinspirit.ca: part of it is a one-year campaign to lobby the
federal government to establish a $10 million fund for research and education
related to violence against Aboriginal women.

Contact the Union for Gender Empowerment (uge at ssmu.mcgill.ca, formerly the
Women's Union) or the Aboriginal Students' Network (aboriginalsn at safe-mail.net)
to get involved in planning McGill events in support of the Sisters in Spirit.

in peace,
Robin Taylor
Robin.Taylor at mail.mcgill.ca

---forwarded news story


Police less diligent with native slayings, rights group says

By JANE ARMSTRONG
Globe and Mail
Tuesday, October  5, 2004 - Page A8

VANCOUVER -- The disappearance of Loretta Capot-Blanc from her northern
British Columbia reserve never made the 6 o'clock news.

Even when her remains were found three weeks later in a shallow grave
outside Fort Nelson -- proof that the 31-year-old mother was slain --
the unsolved homicide went unreported in the newspapers and radio
broadcasts of the day.

Today, seven years after her death, Ms. Capot-Blanc's name is on a list
of about 200 Canadian aboriginal women whose disappearances and deaths
-- largely in the western provinces -- remain unsolved. Some reports say
the number is as high as 500.

A new report by the international human-rights group Amnesty
International says that list of dead and missing is a shameful blight on
Canada's vaunted reputation for upholding human rights.

In a 67-page report released yesterday, the rights group says Canadian
authorities have failed to protect native women.

"In every instance, Canadian authorities could and should have done more
to ensure the safety of these women and girls, or to address the social
and economic factors that helped put them in harm's way," it says.

The report does not tally the missing and dead; those names have been
compiled by the Native Women's Association of Canada as part of
nationwide campaign to raise awareness of the missing and slain
aboriginal women.

But it does fill out some of the circumstances surrounding the
disappearances of women.

Its findings are based on interviews with relatives of the dead and
missing and with law-enforcement officials, plus statistics from the
Canadian Justice Department.

One chilling figure: Young indigenous women are five times more likely
than other Canadian women to die as a result of violence.

Sadly, the circumstances surrounding Ms. Capot-Blanc's unsolved death
were repeated in communities across Western Canada.

In some cases, the slayings occur more than once in the same family. One
involves the infamous case of Helen Betty Osborne, a Cree student from
Northern Manitoba who was abducted one night in 1971 by four white men,
sexually assaulted, then fatally stabbed with a screwdriver. Her death
led to establishment of the Manitoba Justice Inquiry, which called for a
number of reforms to the justice system.

Three decades later, in March of 2003, a teenaged cousin of Ms.
Osborne's, Felicia Solomon, disappeared on her way home from school. Her
body parts were found three months later and the case remains unsolved.

As in the disappearance of Ms. Capot-Blanc, Ms. Solomon's relatives say
police did not act fast enough and the trail grew cold. It was family
members  who first distributed missing person photos.

In the Amnesty report, a relative of Ms. Solomon says her race played a
role in the slow police response.

"When something happens to someone else's child, whether they are white
or from any other kind of race or culture, the police do everything.
It's completely different when an Indian person goes missing."

The report recommends that police departments work with indigenous
groups to set up more effective methods of dealing with missing-person
cases.

It also urges provincial and federal governments to implement many of
the recommendations made by past commissions and inquiries.

And it calls on police to recruit more native officers.

In Fort Nelson meanwhile, Ms. Capot-Blanc's son is now 16 and is being
raised by his grandmother.


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#300-5311 Avenue du Parc
Montreal QC H2V 4G9
(514) 277-7461
Robin.Taylor at mail.mcgill.ca