Murdered and missing indigenous women investigation must address colonialism, observers say
OTTAWA (CCN)
The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls whose commissioners were named Aug. 3 needs to address underlying racism and colonialism, observers say.
Deacon Rennie Nahanee, who heads the First Nations ministry in the Vancouver archdiocese, said he hopes the inquiry will be similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in examining the systemic causes.
“My own suspicion it still stems from the residential schools and the colonial history of Canada,” he said.
“When we look at colonialism and its impacts past and present, we do see the systemic effects it has had on aboriginal men and women,” said University of Ottawa professor and lawyer Claudette Commanda.
Colonialism “dispossessed” aboriginal peoples of “the right to be who they are” and their “natural way of life,” and their rights to their land, she said. “When looking at colonialism we have to look at it with a broad lens.”
While the inquiry is focused on women and girls, we need to examine “the systemic racism and violence against our men as well,” she said.
Inquests and fact-finding missions that look into what happened in various incidences of racism have not stopped the racism, she said. “Colonialism still continues. Society in general has to stop its thinking and behavior towards aboriginal peoples.”
“Canada needs one big history lesson,” she said. She noted TRC chairman Justice Murray Sinclair, now a Senator, said the country has to “accept its dark, colonial history” and without accepting it, it “can’t move forward.”
The inquiry will look into the circumstances surrounding 1,200 murdered or missing Indigenous women. B.C. Provincial Court Judge Marion Buller, the first female First Nations judge in the province’s history, will lead the commission. Commissioners include Michele Audette, former president of the Quebec Native Women’s Association; Qajaq Robinson, a Crown prosecutor in Nunavut, who is fluent in English and Inuktitut; Marilyn Poitras, an assistant professor of law at the University of Saskatchewan, with a background in litigation and treaty implementation; and Brian Eyolfson, from the Couchiching First Nations in Ontario, who at the time of his appointment was serving as deputy director of the Legal Services Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.
With a budget of $53.86 million, the inquiry is expected to wrap up by the end of 2018.
Nahanee said he hopes it will examine the so-called Highway of Tears between Prince Rupert, B.C. and Prince George, B.C. where nearly 50 Indigenous women have disappeared over the past 30 years. He expects it to examine the ongoing victimization of Indigenous women and girls in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside.
“Why are these things still happening to First Nations’ women?” Nahanee said. “These are the questions I hope the inquiry will find the answer to. I’m also hoping more Canadians will become aware of what this investigation is all about.”
Nahanee said he hopes the inquiry will have an approach similar to the TRC’s Calls to Action that “called on different segments of society to respond” such as universities, schools, and churches to “do their part.”
Nahanee said he would like to see the churches make submissions to the inquiry. “The Church is doing something now, especially about prostitution in Vancouver through the social justice office,” he said.
The Church has a number of ministries in the Downtown Eastside to help women “working on the street to show them somebody cares.”
Commanda said the inquiry must place the families of the murdered and missing women at the forefront. Their voices must lead and direct the inquiry, including its recommendations, she said.
The Liberal government launched the inquiry last December, with a consultation with the families. Commanda said the families had raised their concerns about the murder and disappearance of First Nations girls and women more than a decade ago.
“It’s got to be stopped,” she said. Safety, security, protective measures, systemic racism, and discrimination leading to this “national tragedy and disgrace” need to be examined.
“We must never forget about the families,” she said. “They carry the voices for their murdered and missing loved ones. The families are the front-line workers.”
Police, the justice system, and society “need to take the families’ voices seriously,” she said.
Commanda noted the families have complained the police have not taken reports of a missing loved one seriously. They “write it off as runaways, prostitutes, or street workers.”
They engage in “blaming the victim,” Commanda said, ignoring the fact aboriginal women are at a higher risk of being trafficked into sex slavery.
“In essence, doesn’t matter what lifestyle these women have led,” Command said. “They are human beings, and family members are concerned when a loved one goes missing.”
Families have also complained that when their loved one is found murdered, the murder investigation goes nowhere. “We need police to take family members seriously when they come.”
Instances of police abusing aboriginal women, such as the sexual violence by police against Algonquin women in Val D’Or, Que., have to be investigated. “They have to be held accountable,” she said.
Social services and the child welfare system also need to be examined, she said. When children are taken away from their homes and put into foster care, at the age of 18 they are put into urban areas on their own. “Where do they go? They are homeless and vulnerable to being trafficked,” she said.
“Society in general tends to label them prostitutes,” she said. “The labelling, and the blaming of victims, has to stop.”
Preventive measures must be taken, she said. Though there is dysfunction and violence in some communities, the inquiry must examine what caused that dysfunction, going back to colonialism, the Indian Act, the paternalistic treatment by the government that “removed us from natural governance.”
“It’s not just about having brand new shelters popping up, or having new money because there’s an inquiry,” she said. “We have to have culturally-based security and preventive measures and educate the police and frontline workers” about colonialism and racism.
Nahanee said women and girls are more likely to be victimized than men, though “young boys can be taken away, too, and brought into prostitution and even sent to other countries.”
“I believe the laws have to be strengthened, not against the women who are involved in that trade but against the men, those who would seek young people to get involved in that trade,” he said. “I think they are the worst.”
