Violence against indigenous women in Canada

Legal Strategy Coalition demands greater government commitment and accountability to ending violence against Indigenous women and girls.

An alarming study released today shows that governments in Canada have repeatedly ignored expert recommendations to stop violence against Indigenous women and girls.

Researchers with the Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women reviewed 58 reports dealing with aspects of violence and discrimination against Indigenous women and girls, including government studies, reports by international human rights bodies, and published research of Indigenous women's organizations. The reports cover a period of two decades.

"How many Indigenous women and girls would have been found or would still be alive if governments had acted on more of these recommendations? " asked Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs.

"This is yet another piece of irrefutable evidence that governments in Canada have breached their fundamental moral and legal responsibility to ensure the safety of all women, without discrimination."

The reports examined in this study include 40 listed by Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay as evidence of why a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women is not needed.

"The federal government has gotten it all wrong," said Cheryl Maloney, President of the Nova Scotia Native Women's Association. "The fact that governments have been sitting on these reports, leaving important, life-saving recommendations unimplemented, is exactly why we need the intervention of an independent commission of inquiry."

Christa Big Canoe, the Legal Director of Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto said, "A properly established inquiry, backed by a clear commitment by government to act on its findings, would provide the kind of accountability to the public that we so sorely lack."

The coalition study found broad consensus among the reports that the root causes of the high levels of violence against Indigenous women and girls lie in a history of discrimination beginning with colonization and continuing through laws and policies such as the Indian Act and residential schools.

"This history laid the foundations for pervasive violence and created the risks Indigenous women face today," says Sharon McIvor of the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action. "In this way, the reports directly refute the claim made by the federal government that this is a matter of individual crimes, not a 'social phenomenon'."

"Better policing and community safety measures are important, but they're not the whole picture," said Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada.

"We need to address the root causes that put Indigenous women and girls in harm's way. Unfortunately, despite the analysis set out in all these reports, the federal government still maintains that historical facts and broad sociological patterns can be dismissed and ignored."
Aimée Craft (Mikinaak Ikwe), Indigenous law professor and lawyer, Treaty One, said, "In Winnipeg, our young indigenous women and girls are still disappearing and being victimized.

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LEAF is a national, non-profit organization committed to confront all forms of discrimination through litigation, public education, and law reform to achieve equality for women and girls under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

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