[Shadow_Group] STOLEN SISTERS: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

>From http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR200012004<http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR200012004>

STOLEN SISTERS
Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women
in Canada

A Summary of Amnesty International's Concerns

One Family, Three Decades, Two Murders

Helen Betty Osborne was a 19-year-old Cree student from northern Manitoba
who dreamed of becoming a teacher. On November 12, 1971, she was abducted by
four white men in the town of The Pas and then sexually assaulted and
brutally killed. A provincial inquiry subsequently concluded that Canadian
authorities had failed Helen Betty Osborne. The inquiry criticized the
sloppy and racially biased police investigation that took more than 15 years
to bring one of the four men to justice. Most disturbingly, the inquiry
concluded that police had long been aware of white men sexually preying on
Indigenous women and girls in The Pas but "did not feel that the practice
necessitated any particular vigilance."(1)

Three decades later, on March 25, 2003, Felicia Solomon, a 16-year-old
cousin of Helen Betty Osborne, failed to return home from school in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. Felicia's family says the Winnipeg police did not treat
the case seriously when they first reported Felicia missing. A Winnipeg
police spokesperson told Amnesty International that the force responds to
missing persons reports based on an assessment of the likely risk to the
missing person and does not have a policy of waiting 48 hours for the person
to turn up, as many in the public believe. However, the family says that the
officers who took the report said they could not take action until another
48 hours had passed. The first posters seeking information on Felicia
Solomon's disappearance were distributed by the family, not the police. A
family member comments: "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." In June 2003, body parts were found that were later identified as
Felicia Solomon's. Her killer has not been found.

The murders of Helen Betty Osborne and Felicia Solomon are two of the cases
highlighted in a new report by Amnesty International - Stolen Sisters: A
human rights response to discrimination and violence against Indigenous
women in Canada.(2) These stories of missing and murdered Indigenous(3)
women and girls take place in three Western provinces of Canada over a
period of three decades. The perpetrators, where known, include both
intimate acquaintances and strangers. In some cases, the crimes remain
unsolved. 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 had helped put them in harm's way.

The Scope of the Violence

A shocking 1996 Canadian government statistic reveals that Indigenous women
between the ages of 25 and 44, with status under the Indian Act, were five
times more likely than all other women of the same age to die as the result
of violence.(4) Understanding the true scale and nature of violence against
Indigenous women, however, is greatly hampered by a persistent lack of
comprehensive reporting and statistical analysis.

Reports of murders, assaults or missing persons may be investigated by
municipal police forces, provincial forces or the national police force, the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Police have said that they do not
necessarily record the ethnicity of crime victims or missing persons when
entering information into the Canadian Police Information Centre database,
the principle mechanism for sharing information among police forces in
Canada.(5) According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, in 11
percent of homicides in 2000, Canadian police did not record or report on
whether or not the victim was an Indigenous person.(6)

Indigenous women's organizations have long spoken out against what some
describe as an epidemic of violence against women and children within
Indigenous communities.(7) More recently, a number of advocacy
organizations, including the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC),
have drawn attention to acts of violence perpetrated against Indigenous
women in predominantly non-Indigenous communities. A number of high profile
cases of assaulted, missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls have also
helped focus greater public attention - in some instances, very belatedly -
on violence against Indigenous women in specific cities. For example:

· A joint RCMP/Vancouver City Police Taskforce is investigating the
disappearance of 60 women and one transgender person from Vancouver, British
Columbia over the last decade. Sixteen of the missing women are Indigenous,
a number far in excess of the proportion of Indigenous women living in
Vancouver. A British Columbia man, Robert Pickton, is currently awaiting
trial for 22 murder charges related to this investigation. Police and city
officials had long denied that there was any pattern to the disappearances
or that the women were in any particular danger.

· In two separate instances in 1994, 15-year-old Indigenous girls, Roxanna
Thiara and Alishia Germaine, were found murdered in Prince George in eastern
British Columbia. The body of a third 15-year-old Indigenous girl, Ramona
Wilson, who disappeared that same year, was found in Smithers in central
British Columbia in April 1995. Only in 2002, after the disappearance of a
26-year-old non-Indigenous woman, Nicola Hoar, while hitchhiking along a
road that connects Prince George and Smithers, did media attention focus on
the unsolved murders and other disappearances along what has been dubbed
"the highway of tears."

· In 1996, John Martin Crawford was convicted of murder in the killings of
three Indigenous women, Eva Taysup, Shelley Napope, and Calinda Waterhen, in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Warren Goulding, one of the few journalists to
cover the trial, has commented: "I don't get the sense the general public
cares much about missing or murdered aboriginal women. It's all part of this
indifference to the lives of aboriginal people. They don't seem to matter as
much as white people."(8)

· In May 2004, a former British Columbia Provincial Court judge, David
William Ramsey, pleaded guilty to buying sex from and assaulting four
Indigenous girls, aged 12, 14, 15 and 16, who had appeared before him in
court. The crimes were committed between 1992 and 2001. In June, the former
judge was sentenced to seven years in prison.
· In Edmonton, Alberta, police are investigating 18 unsolved murders of
women in the last two decades. Women's organizations in the city estimate
that a disproportionate number of the women were Indigenous.

NWAC believes that the incidents that have come to light are only part of
the picture. The organization has estimated that over the past twenty years
more than five hundred Indigenous women may have been murdered or gone
missing in circumstances suggesting violence.

Given the significant gaps in available information, it is not possible to
comment on the accuracy of this estimate. Until police consistently record
whether or not missing persons and the victims of violent assaults are
Indigenous, and these statistics are subject to comprehensive analysis, it
will not be possible to accurately estimate the true scale or the
circumstances of violence against Indigenous women in Canada. Yet, no matter
what the exact toll of murdered and missing women has been, their fate has
not been adequately addressed by Canadian authorities. Faced with apparent
indifference to the welfare and safety of Indigenous women, the families and
non-governmental organizations working on their behalf have been obliged to
launch their own campaigns to bring the issue before the police, media and
government officials.

Amnesty International's own research was not comprehensive. The stories told
in Amnesty International's report have been chosen because they reflect the
range of concerns and circumstances brought to the organization's attention.
Amnesty International's research focused on a limited number of cities in
western Canada where there is a large and growing Indigenous population and
where there has already been some public attention to these concerns.(9)
Many regions of the country, such as the north of Canada, could not be
included in this research. Furthermore, the report only includes case
studies in which the families of these women and girls were willing and
prepared to have these stories told publicly.

However, the stories told in the report, along with valuable input from a
range of front-line organizations, work done by authoritative government
commissions such as the Manitoba Justice Inquiry, and other information
reviewed in the course of research, all point to an urgent need for Canadian
officials to better understand and address violence against Indigenous women
in predominantly non-Indigenous communities. It is Amnesty International's
view that the role of discrimination in fuelling this violence, in denying
Indigenous women the protection they deserve or in allowing the perpetrators
to escape justice is a critical part of the threat faced by Indigenous
women.

Indigenous Women at Risk

The Manitoba Justice Inquiry said of the killing of Helen Betty Osborne:
There is one fundamental fact: her murder was a racist and sexist act. Betty
Osborne would be alive today had she not been an Aboriginal woman.(10)

Those words describe an act of horrific violence carried out by four men
more than thirty years ago. Sadly, Amnesty International's research
underscores the fact that three decades later the lives of Indigenous women
in Canada continue to be placed at risk precisely because they are
Indigenous women. That research, along with the testimony of frontline
organizations and the conclusions of previous government commissions and
inquiries, points to the following factors linking racism and discrimination
to violence against Indigenous women in urban centers in Canada:

· Despite assurances to the contrary, police in Canada have often failed to
provide Indigenous women with an adequate standard of protection.

· The social and economic marginalisation of Indigenous women, along with a
history of government policies that have torn apart Indigenous families and
communities, have pushed a disproportionate number of Indigenous women into
dangerous situations that include extreme poverty, homelessness and
prostitution.

· The resulting vulnerability of Indigenous women has been exploited by
Indigenous and non-Indigenous men to carry out acts of extreme brutality
against Indigenous women.

· These acts of violence may be motivated by racism, or may be carried out
in the expectation that societal indifference to the welfare and safety of
Indigenous women will allow the perpetrators to escape justice.

Indigenous women's lives remain at risk in part because of the failure of
Canadian officials to implement critical measures needed to reduce the
marginalisation of Indigenous women in Canadian society and build better
relations between Indigenous peoples and the justice system. These are
measures that have been repeatedly called for by commissions and inquiries
such as the Manitoba Justice Inquiry and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples, and by United Nations human rights bodies.(11) The failure to
respond quickly and appropriately to threats to Indigenous women's lives
means that Canadian officials have failed to live up to their responsibility
to prevent violations of Indigenous women's fundamental human rights.(12)

A Legacy of History

Violence against women and children within Indigenous families and
communities is widely understood to be part of a broader spectrum of social
stress and turmoil that has resulted from government policies imposed on
Indigenous peoples without their consent.(13)

For more than a century, from the 1870s through the mid-1980s, the Canadian
government took away Indigenous women's status as Indigenous people under
the federal Indian Act, along with their right to live in their home
communities, if they married a non-Indigenous man or a man from another
community. This policy resulted in the uprooting of tens of thousands of
Indigenous women, jeopardizing their ties to their families and increasing
their dependence on their spouses.

During roughly the same period, the government required Indigenous children
to be educated in off-reserve residential schools where, in addition to
being punished for speaking their language or practicing their cultures,
many were subjected to inhuman living conditions and physical and sexual
abuse. (14)

Even as the residential school system was being phased out through the
1960s, Indigenous children continued to be taken from their families by
child service programs oriented toward putting children in the care of the
state rather than addressing the circumstances of poverty and family
violence that placed the children at risk - a problem that persists
today.(15)

All the while, the land and resource base essential to the viability of
Indigenous economies and ways of living has been dramatically eroded by the
failure of governments to consistently recognize and uphold Indigenous
title.(16)

The legacy of these policies has been the erosion of culture, the uprooting
of generations of Indigenous women, the separation of children from their
parents, and a cycle of impoverishment, despair and broken self-esteem that
continues to grip many Indigenous families. The federal government's Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) concluded in 1996:

Repeated assaults on the culture and collective identity of Aboriginal
people have weakened the foundations of Aboriginal society and contributed
to the alienation that drives some to self-destruction and anti-social
behaviour. Social problems among Aboriginal people are, in large measure, a
legacy of history.(17)

Amnesty International's research suggests that the same legacy of history
has also contributed to a heightened risk of violence for Indigenous women
in urban centers in Canada. Generations of Indigenous women and girls have
been dispossessed by government policies. Many now face desperate
circumstances in Canadian towns and cities, a situation compounded by sexist
stereotypes and racist attitudes toward Indigenous women and girls and
general indifference to their welfare and safety. The result has been far
too many Indigenous women and girls placed in harm's way, denied adequate
protection of the law, and marginalized in a way that allows some men to get
away with carrying out violent crimes against them.

Dispossessed in Their Own Lands

Social strife, decades of involuntary uprooting of women and children, and
lack of economic and educational opportunities within many Indigenous
communities have contributed to a steady growth in the number of Indigenous
people living in predominantly non-Indigenous towns and cities.

On average, however, Indigenous women in Canadian urban centers are unable
to earn enough money to meet their own needs, much less support a family. In
the 1996 census, the average annual income of Indigenous women with status
living off-reserve was $5,500 less than that of non-Indigenous women(18) and
substantially less than the amount Statistics Canada estimated people living
in a large Canadian city would have needed to provide food, shelter and
clothing for themselves.(19) Homelessness and inadequate shelter are
believed to be widespread problems facing Indigenous families in all
settings.(20)

The difficult struggle to get by is compounded by sexist stereotypes and
racist attitudes toward Indigenous women and girls and general indifference
to their welfare and safety. As described in 1993 by the Canadian Panel on
Violence against Women: ".most Aboriginal people have known racism
first-hand - most have been called 'dirty Indians' in schools or foster
homes or by police and prison guards. Aboriginal people have also
experienced subtle shifts in treatment and know it is no accident."(21)

In one survey, Indigenous families struggling with poverty described their
situation using words and phrases such as "low self-esteem, depression,
anger, self-doubt, intimidation, frustration, shame and hopelessness."(22)

Prostitution is one means which some Indigenous women have resorted to in
the
struggle to provide for themselves and their families in Canadian
cities.(23) In a study of 183 women in the Vancouver sex trade carried out
by the PACE (Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education) Society,
roughly 40 percent of the women said they got into the sex trade because
they needed the money(24) and 25 percent referred to drug addiction as part
of the reason they started selling sexual services. Almost 60 percent said
they continued working in the sex trade to maintain a drug habit.(25) In the
PACE study, more than 30 percent of sex workers surveyed were Indigenous
women, although Indigenous people make up less than two percent of the city'
s population.(26) Indigenous women are believed to be similarly
over-represented among sex workers in other Canadian cities.

Another non-governmental organization, Save the Children Canada, spoke with
more than 150 Indigenous youths and children being exploited in the sex
trade. Almost all the youth and children interviewed talked about "the
overwhelming presence of disruption and discord in their lives, accompanied
by low self-esteem."(27) Other factors common to many of the young peoples'
lives included a history of physical or sexual abuse, a history of running
away from families or foster homes, lack of strong ties to family and
community, homelessness or transience, lack of opportunities, and poverty.
The report notes:

Any trauma that detaches children from their families, communities and
cultures increases the likelihood of involvement in commercial sexual
exploitation. Once a child or youth loses such basic parameters as safety,
shelter and sustenance, their vulnerability forces them into situations
whereby the sex trade can become the only viable alternative for
survival.(28)

Violence Against Women in the Sex Trade

Whether or not prostitution is a criminal act, women in the sex trade are
entitled to the protection of their human rights. Concrete and effective
measures must be adopted to ensure their safety and to bring to justice
those who commit or profit from violence against sex trade workers.

Working in the sex trade in Canada can be extremely dangerous for women,
whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous. This is especially true for women who
solicit on the streets. In the PACE study, one-third of the women said they
had survived an attack on their life while working on the street.(29)

Women in the sex trade are at heightened risk of violence because they are
often desperate enough to take risks such as getting into cars with men
known to be violent and because the social stigmatization of women in the
sex trade provides a convenient rationale for men looking for targets for
acts of misogynistic violence.(30) Furthermore, the threat of arrest makes
many women reluctant to report attacks to the police or cooperate with
police investigations. As a result, the perpetrators may be encouraged by
the belief that they are likely to get away with their crimes.

The isolation and social marginalization that increases the risk of violence
faced by women in the sex trade is often particularly acute for Indigenous
women. The role of racism and sexism in compounding the threat to Indigenous
women in the sex trade was starkly noted by Justice David Wright in the 1996
trial of John Martin Crawford for the murder of three Indigenous women in
Saskatchewan:

It seems Mr. Crawford was attracted to his victims for four reasons; one,
they were young; second, they were women; third, they were native; and
fourth, they were prostitutes. They were persons separated from the
community and their families. The accused treated them with contempt,
brutality; he terrorized them and ultimately he killed them. He seemed
determined to destroy every vestige of their humanity.(31)

Racist Violence and Indigenous Women

Among the missing and murdered Indigenous women whose stories appear in
Amnesty International's report, some had occasionally or regularly engaged
in the sex trade to make a living. Others, however, had had no connection to
the sex trade. It is Amnesty International's view that some of the factors
contributing to violence against sex workers, such as social stigmatisation
and being cut off from the protection of family and society, are often part
of the experience of Indigenous women beyond the sex trade.

The Manitoba Justice Inquiry said of the murder of Helen Betty Osborne:

Her attackers seemed to be operating on the assumption that Aboriginal women
were promiscuous and open to enticement through alcohol or violence. It is
evident that the men who abducted Osborne believed that young Aboriginal
women were objects with no human value beyond sexual gratification.(32)

Frontline organizations contacted by Amnesty International confirmed that
racist and sexist attitudes toward Indigenous women continue to be a factor
in attacks on Indigenous women in Canadian cities. Police, however, are
inconsistent in their acknowledgement of this threat. Some police
spokespersons told Amnesty International that they believe that "lifestyle"
factors, such as engaging the sex trade or illegal drug use are the most
important risk factors, and that other factors such as race or gender are
not significant enough to be considered in their work. Other police
spokespersons told Amnesty International that they have seen that racism and
sexism are factors in attacks on Indigenous women and that they consider
Indigenous women as a whole to be at risk.
Over Policed and Under Protected

Numerous studies of policing in Canada have concluded that Indigenous people
as a whole are not getting the protection they deserve.(33) This conclusion
is supported by the testimony of many of the families interviewed by Amnesty
International. A few described police officers who were polite and efficient
and who, in a few cases, even went to extraordinary lengths to investigate
the disappearance of their loved ones. Other families described how police
failed to act promptly when their sisters or daughters went missing, treated
the family disrespectfully, or kept the family in the dark about how the
investigation - if any - was proceeding.

A number of police officers interviewed by Amnesty International insisted
that they handle all cases the same and do not treat anyone differently
because they are Indigenous. However, if police are to provide Indigenous
people with a standard of protection equivalent to that provided to other
sectors of society, police need to understand the specific needs of
Indigenous communities, be able to communicate with Indigenous people
without barriers of fear and mistrust, and ultimately be accountable to
Indigenous communities. As some police officers acknowledged to Amnesty
International, this is clearly not the case today.

Across the country, Indigenous people face arrest and criminal prosecution
in numbers far out of proportion to the size of the Indigenous population.
The Manitoba Justice Inquiry suggested that the overrepresentation of
Indigenous people in the justice system may partly stem from the
predisposition of police to charge and detain Indigenous people in
circumstances "when a white person in the same circumstances might not be
arrested at all, or might not be held."(34) The Inquiry explained that many
police have come to view Indigenous people not as a community deserving
protection, but a community from which the rest of society must be
protected. This has lead to a situation often described as one of Indigenous
people being over-policed but under-protected.(35)

Many Indigenous people feel they have little reason to trust police and as a
consequence, are reluctant to turn to police for protection. Police forces
were used to enforce policies such as the removal of children to residential
schools that have torn apart Indigenous communities. Today, many Indigenous
people believe police are as likely to harm as to protect them. The
Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission noted that "mothers of Aboriginal
youth have spoken about the apprehension they feel when their children leave
the home at night. Their fears involve the possibility of police abusing
their children."(36) One Indigenous woman, herself a professor at a Canadian
university, told Amnesty International that she has instructed her teenage
son to never talk to the police unless she is present.

Protesting against the absence of any permanent police force in many
Northern communities, the Inuit Women's Association of Canada has said, "In
order to serve all parts of the communities, the police have to know our
communities, they must be a part of our communities."(37) Many police forces
in Canada now require officers to take courses in cultural sensitivity,
cross cultural communication or Indigenous history to help improve their
understanding of Indigenous communities. Despite such requirements, the
Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission concluded, "police officers continue
to be assigned to First Nations and Métis communities with minimal knowledge
of the culture and history of the people they serve."(38)

Despite the efforts of many police forces to hire more Indigenous officers,
Indigenous people are still underrepresented in police forces across
Canada.(39) Greater effort must be made to hire more Indigenous officers,
especially women.

More attention must also be made to integrate an understanding of Indigenous
communities into core learning experiences of all officers. For example, the
concerns, perspectives and needs of Indigenous communities should be
reflected in the operational scenarios used in police training. Officers
also need the time and the opportunity within their day-to-day duties to
develop the necessary relationships of mutual understanding and trust with
Indigenous communities. Unfortunately, many officers told Amnesty
International that heavy workloads and frequent, often mandatory, rotations
in and out of assignments, present real barriers to officers understanding
and being trusted by Indigenous communities.

Police forces should work with Indigenous organizations to establish
practices and policies that can support not only the learning of individual
officers, but also an improved relationship between Indigenous communities
and the force as a whole. The Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission pointed
to a number of positive practices within the Saskatoon police force that
should be emulated elsewhere. These included the creation of an Indigenous
liaison post and regular cooperation with community elders, including having
elders accompany officers on some patrols in predominantly Indigenous
neighbourhoods.(40)
One of the critical areas for institutional reform highlighted by Amnesty
International's research is the way police respond to reports of missing
persons. Many Indigenous families told Amnesty International that police did
little when they reported a sister or daughter missing and seemed to be
waiting for the woman to be found. Police point out that the vast majority
of people who are reported missing have run away or chosen to break off ties
with family or friends. Most people who have voluntarily "gone missing" in
this way do quickly turn up on their own.

However, this does not excuse incidents recounted to Amnesty International
where, despite the serious concern of family members that a missing sister
or daughter was in serious danger, police failed to take basic steps such as
promptly interviewing family and friends or appealing to the public for
information. These steps are particularly urgent when the missing person is
a girl, as the state has special obligations to find and protect children at
risk. Every missing person report needs to be carefully assessed to
determine the risk to the missing person. Unfortunately, even in large
cities, many Canadian police forces do not have specialized personnel
assigned to missing person cases. Instead, the task of assessing the risk
and the credibility of the family's fears may fall to individual officers
with little or no specific training or experience related to missing
persons.

To Amnesty International's knowledge, few police forces have specific
protocols on actions to be taken when Indigenous women and girls are
reported missing. The national police force, the RCMP, does require that a
specialized liaison officer be involved in the case when the missing person
is Indigenous. All forces should work with Indigenous communities to develop
and put in place more specific protocols that are sensitive to the
particular concerns and circumstances in which Indigenous women are reported
missing.

There are additional concerns around police treatment of Indigenous and
non-Indigenous women in the sex trade.

Under Canadian law, the act of prostitution is not illegal, but
communicating in public for the purpose of buying or selling sexual
services, as well as buying or attempting to buy the sexual services of
someone younger than 18, being found in a place maintained for prostitution,
and procuring or living off the proceeds of someone else's prostitution are
all criminal acts.(41) Although these laws potentially target those who
purchase sex or live off of prostitution as much as they target women and
men who sell sexual services, prostitutes are the most frequent targets of
arrest in many jurisdictions. Many in the sex trade say that the threat of
enforcement of these laws is used to drive sex trade workers from
neighbourhoods where affluent residents are likely to complain, into less
visible, and therefore more dangerous areas.(42)

The threat of arrest places sex workers in an "adversarial relationship"
with police.(43) Sex workers are reluctant to seek the protection of police
for fear of being arrested. In turn, police tend to look on prostitutes with
suspicion and mistrust, and may blame them for putting themselves in
positions of risk.The executive director of Regina's Sex Workers' Advocacy
Project, Barb Lawrence, told Amnesty International about comments made by
one police officer. A sex worker missed an appointment with a Crown
Prosecutor to give testimony in the case of a murdered Indigenous woman in
Regina. Lawrence, who had set up the meeting, eventually received a call
from the sex worker. It turned out that the woman was being held by city
police who wanted her to provide evidence on a separate case. The police had
refused to believe that she had a meeting with the prosecutor's office. When
Lawrence and the prosecutors went to the police station to meet the woman,
the arresting officer reportedly said he had no reason to believe the woman'
s claims, saying "she's just a hooker on the street."

Conclusion and Recommendations

Indigenous women and girls deserve the protection of Canadian authorities
and Canadian society. The failure to provide that protection is a personal
tragedy for their families who have lost sisters, daughters and mothers to
racist and sexist violence. It is also a human rights tragedy.

The concept of human rights is based on the recognition of the inherent
dignity and worth of every human being - without exception. Through
ratification of binding international human rights treaties and the adoption
of important declarations by bodies such as the United Nations, governments
have made a commitment to ensure that all people enjoy universal rights and
freedoms. Governments are obliged to provide protection from discrimination
and ensure that everyone has access to adequate healthcare, education, and
shelter. Governments are also obliged to take every reasonable precaution to
prevent crimes such as murder, abduction and torture.

Amnesty International is concerned that Canadian officials are not living up
to their obligations toward Indigenous women. Attacks on Indigenous women in
Canadian cities have, for too long, been treated as isolated incidents. The
common patterns are not adequately researched and many of the preventive
measures identified by past government commissions and inquiries have not
been implemented. Meanwhile longstanding patterns of social and economic
inequity that remain unaddressed continue to drive Indigenous women and
girls into situations like the sex trade where the risk to their lives is
that much greater.

It is time for action.

All levels of government in Canada should work closely and urgently with
Indigenous peoples' organizations, and Indigenous women in particular, to
institute plans of action to stop violence against Indigenous women. The
following recommendations for action are based on recommendations made by
the families of missing women, frontline organizations working for
Indigenous women's welfare and safety, and official government inquiries and
commissions. Some of the recommendations are specific to the situation and
needs of Indigenous women. Others are relevant to both Indigenous women and
non-Indigenous women.
Canadian officials should:

1. Identify and implement appropriate and effective protocols for action on
missing person cases consistent with the specific risks to Indigenous women
and girls.
2. Provide adequate, sustained, multi-year funding to culturally appropriate
services, such as shelters and counselling for Indigenous women and girls,
needed to prevent violence against Indigenous women. The design and
implementation of these programs must be responsive to the needs of
Indigenous women.

3. Expand programs which provide advocates to assist Indigenous people in
their contacts with police and with courts.

4. Ensure that all police forces in Canada are subject to the jurisdiction
of independent civilian bodies able to investigate allegations of wrongdoing
by police.

5. Increase recruitment of Indigenous police officers, particularly
Indigenous women. As well, ensure adequate training for all police,
prosecutors and judges on issues of violence against Indigenous women in a
range of settings including family violence, child sexual exploitation and
violence against women in the sex trade.

6. As part of ongoing review and implementation of laws regarding the sex
trade in Canada, give police clear instructions to ensure that the
fundamental rights of women involved in the sex trade are protected in the
course of all law enforcement activities.

7. Provide funding for comprehensive national research on violence against
Indigenous women, including the creation of a national registry to collect
and analyze statistical information from all jurisdictions.

8. Request the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people and Special Rapporteur
on violence against women, its causes and consequences, to jointly study and
document patterns of violence against Indigenous women, including in Canada.
Clearly outline the measures taken to address the problem of violence
against Indigenous women in Canada in reports to relevant UN human rights
bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the
Human Rights Committee.

9. Implement outstanding recommendations of the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples which address poverty and social marginalization of
Indigenous people in Canada, as has repeatedly been urged by United Nations
human rights treaty bodies.

10. Strengthen and expand public education programs, including those within
the formal school system, that acknowledge and address the history of
dispossession and marginalization of Indigenous peoples and the present
reality of racism in Canadian society.

11. Take measures to ensure mandatory and meaningful consultation with
Indigenous women in the formulation and implementation of all policies
affecting their welfare.

12. Ratify and uphold international human rights instruments relevant to the
prevention of violence against women, including the Inter-American
Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against
Women (Convention of Belém do Pará).

For further recommendations, please see our full report: Stolen Sisters: A
Human Rights Response to Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous
Women in Canada.

Take action

Add your voice to the demand that Canadian officials take urgent action to
stop violence against Indigenous women in Canada.

Write to:

The Honourable Anne McLellan
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency
Preparedness
House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Canada

Express your deep concern about violence against Indigenous women in Canada.
Ask the federal government to take the following steps as a matter of urgent
priority:

· Strongly encourage all police forces across Canada to work with Indigenous
women's organizations to identify and implement appropriate and effective
protocols for action on missing person cases consistent with the specific
risks to Indigenous women and girls.

· Ensure adequate, sustained, multi-year funding to culturally appropriate
services such as shelters and counselling, needed to prevent violence
against Indigenous women.

· Provide adequate funding for comprehensive national research on violence
against Indigenous women, including the creation of a national registry to
collect and analyze statistical information from all jurisdictions.

· Ensure full implementation of outstanding recommendations of the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which address poverty and social
marginalization of Indigenous people in Canada, as has repeatedly been urged
by United Nations treaty bodies.

********

(1) Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba: The Deaths of
Helen Betty Osborne and John Joseph Harper, Commissioners A.C. Hamilton and
C.M. Sinclair, 1991.

(2) The cases are included in the full version of this report.

(3) The term "Indigenous" refers to all descendants of the original
inhabitants of the territories that now make up Canada. This includes the
First Nations, the Inuit and the Métis. In Canada, the word "Aboriginal" has
the same meaning and is more widely used. This report uses the term
"Indigenous" because of its use in international human rights laws and
standards.

(4) Aboriginal Women: A Demographic, Social and Economic Profile, Indian and
Northern Affairs Canada, Summer 1996.

(5) Canadian Press, "Missing aboriginal women inspire national campaign," 22
March 2004.

(6) Juristat Vol 21, No.9, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics,
Statistics Canada 2001.

(7) See, for example, Claudine Dumont-Smith and Pauline Sioui Labelle,
National Family Violence Abuse Study. Aboriginal Nurses of Canada, 1991.
Pauktuutit (Inuit Women's Association). No more secrets. 1991.

(8) "Serial killer who roamed Saskatoon met with indifference by police,
media: Journalist-author accepts award for book about slain aboriginal
women." Edmonton Journal. 29 November 2003.

(9) Vancouver, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg.

(10) Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, Supra, footnote
1.

(11) See, for instance, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
(RCAP), 1996, http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html<http://www.ainc-inac.gcca/ch/rcap/sg/sgmm_e.html>; and the
Concluding observations of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights: Canada, 10/12/98, E/C.12/1/Add.31.

(12) Canada's obligations to protect Indigenous women from violence stem
from a number of international human rights treaties including the
Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, article 2;
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 2; and the
International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination, article 2.

(13) See, for example, The Aboriginal Family Healing Unit Steering
Committee, For Generations to Come: The Time is Now: A Strategy for
Aboriginal Family Healing (Sylvia Maracle, Barbara Craig, co-chairs), 1993.

(14) RCAP, Supra, footnote 11.

(15) Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Assembly of
First Nations. First Nations Child and Family Services Joint National Policy
Review. Ottawa, 2000. Cindy Blackstock, Sarah Clarke, James Cullen, Jeffrey
D'Hondt, and Jocelyn Formsma. Keeping the Promise: The Convention on the
Rights of the Child and the Lived Experiences of First Nations Children and
Youth. First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Ottawa.
2004.

(16) RCAP, Supra, footnote 11.

(17) RCAP. Ibid.

(18) Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Aboriginal Women: A Profile from
the 1996 Census, Ottawa, 2001.

(19) Statistics Canada. Low income cut offs from 1994-2003 and low income
measures from 1992-2001, Ottawa, 2003.

(20) Mary Ann Beavis, Nancy Klos, Tom Carter and Christian Douchant.
Literature Review: Aboriginal Peoples and Homelessness. Institute of Urban
Studies, The University of Winnipeg. January 1997.

(21) Freeman Marshall, Pat and Marthe Asselin Vaillancourt. Changing the
Landscape: Ending Violence -Achieving Equality: Final Report of the Canadian
Panel on Violence Against Women, Ottawa:

Supply and Services Canada, 1993.

(22) Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, Urban Aboriginal Child
Poverty: A Status Report on Aboriginal Children & Their Families in Ontario,
Toronto, Ontario, October, 2000

(23) A variety of factors lead women to work in the sex trade. That full
range of circumstances is not the focus of this report, which concentrates
on Indigenous women in Canada.

(24) PACE Society, Violence against Women in Vancouver's Street Level Sex
Trade and the Police Response, Vancouver, 2000, p. 82.

(25) Ibid. pp. 32-3.

(26) Ibid. p. 6.

(27) Save the Children Canada. Sacred lives: Canadian Aboriginal children
and youth speak out about sexual exploitation. National Aboriginal
Consultation Project. Ottawa, 2000. p. 33.

(28) Ibid., p. 34.

(29) PACE Society, Supra, footnote 24, p. 6.

(30) John Lowman. "Violence and the Outlaw Status of (Street) Prostitution
in Canada. Violence Against Women, Volume 6, Number 9, September 2000, pp.
987-1011, at 989.

(31) Warren Goulding. Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada's
Indifference, Calgary: Heritage House Publishing Company. 2001. p. 188.

(32) Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, Supra, footnote
1.

(33) See for example: Saskatchewan Commission on First Nations and Métis
Peoples and Justice Reform (Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission), Final
Report, Regina, 2004. Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba,
Supra, footnote 1.

(34) Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, Supra, footnote 1, p. 595

(35) The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission, Final Report,
Manitoba, 2001.

(36) Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission, Supra, footnote 33, pp. 5-3,
5-4.

(37) Pauktuutit (Inuit Women's Association of Canada), Inuit Women and
Justice: Progress Report No. 1, Appendix, Violence Against Women and
Children: The Concerns of Labrador Women pp.5-6.

(38) Saskatchewan Justice Reform Commission, Supra, footnote 33, pp. 5-8.

(39) Ibid, pp. 5-10, 5-11. The Aboriginal Justice Implementation Commission.
Supra, footnote 34.

(40) Ibid., p. A-34.

(41) Criminal Code of Canada, ss. 212, 213.

(42) Pivot Legal Society. Voices for Dignity: A Call to End the Harms Caused
by Canada's Sex Trade Laws. Vancouver, 2004.

(43) Lowman, Supra, footnote 30, p. 1008.



-----------------------------
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor
is the mind of the oppressed." (Steve Biko)



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