Remembering Vancouver’s Missing Women

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Mar 30/2009

Remembering Vancouver’s Missing Women

On Monday March 30th, at 12 in the afternoon, a small crowd of about thirty people gathered outside the University Avenue courthouse in Toronto to remember Vancouver’s Missing Women. Within the last twenty years, over 500 Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing in Canada. On Monday, at an event planned by Robyn Bourgeois and Robbyn Zwaiggenbaum of CAVE (Coalition Against Violence Everywhere), activists and students gathered to pay respect and commemorate the lives of the 76 women who have gone missing from or been murdered in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside since 1978. An alarmingly high proportion of these women have been Aboriginal. Although Aboriginal women make up less than 1% of the population of Vancouver, they represent one-third to one-half of Vancouver’s Missing Women.

 This over-representation is a result of the fact that Aboriginal women are at such great risk for violence. The space of poverty that Aboriginal people have been forced to inhabit contributes to society seeing them as less worthy or deserving of protection and justice because they should have known better then to be in a space where violence routinely occurs. As one of the accused in the Pamela George (a 28 year old Aboriginal woman beat to death by two 20 year old boys) case said during trial: “She deserved it. She was an Indian” (Amnesty International 2004:46).

Robyn Bourgeois, Aboriginal scholar and activist, led the commemorative event on Monday, beginning with an Aboriginal song that was written in memory of the missing women. Representatives from Amnesty International and METRAC (Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children) were present and offered statements denouncing the violence. 76 pink balloons were held by participants at the event to represent each of the missing women. Attached to each balloon was a hand-made craft tag that included a picture and brief description of each woman.

As the names of each woman were read, the balloons were released into the sky in a symbolic gesture meant to free the women from the pain and suffering they’d endured. The hope was that after the balloons had popped and the tags floated back down to the ground, they would be found by people who would read them and be inspired to learn more and join the movement to stop violence against Aboriginal girls and women.

 As Robyn questioned during the event: what other group of women in Canada could be subjected to such horrific and patterned violence to the utter ignorance and disregard of the Canadian public?

 The fact that many of the women who went missing were also prostitutes contributes greatly to the public belief that these women “should have known better.” “Most people think of prostitutes as someone who is hard-core, and that she asked for what she got. But the last time I looked, the sentence for prostitution isn’t execution” (Linda Barker-Lawrence of the National Victim Centre in Dallas, Texas as quoted in the San Diego Union, 12 February 1989).

Violence Against Aboriginal Women is inflicted with relative impunity in Canada because we live in a country that ignores and devalues the experiences of Aborignal people. Combined with the ignorance and acceptance of violence against all women, Aboriginal women are doubly oppressed - as a result of their culture and their sex.

 According to a 1996 statistic, Aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely to die as a result of violence then other women in that same age group (Amnesty International 2004:23). This statistic makes it clear that the violence which is inflicted upon these women is neither random nor the result of bad luck - this violence is systemic, long-term, targeted, and accepted by Canadian society.

In fact, Canada has actively contributed to this epidemic through a colonial history of extreme racism, classism, sexism, and oppression: “For indigenous women in Canada, violence often takes place in a context shaped[...]by the power that the dominant society has wielded over every aspect of their lives” (Amnesty International 204:11). In 1999 the Canadian Government identified the situation of Indigenous people as “the most pressing human rights issue in Canada.” In 2007 Robert Pickton had 27 charges laid against him and 1/3 of the women he is accused of killing are Aboriginal.

Canadians all across this country should be outraged that Aboriginal women are disappearing and being murdered at such an alarming rate. Our silence implicates us not only in acceptance of these crimes, but the active perpetuation and sustainability of a culture of violence against women everywhere.

 These women cannot be forgotten.

Serena Abotsway. Mona Wilson. Jacqueline McDonnel. Dianne Rock. Heather Bottomly.

Andrea Josebury. Brenda Wolfe. Jennifer Furminger. Helen Hallmark.

Patricia Johnson. Georgina Papin. Heather Chinnock. Tanya Holyk. Sherry Irving.

Inga Hall. Marnie Frey. Tiffany Drew. Sarah DeVries. Cindy Feliks. Angela Jardine.

Diana Melnick. Andrea Borhaven. Angela Arsenault. Catherine Knight. Catherine Gonzalez.

Cindy Beck. Dawn Crey. Debra Jones. Dorothy Spence. Elaine Allenbach.

Frances Young. Ingrid Soet. Jacqueline Murdock. Janet Henry. Julie Young.

Kathleen Wattley. Kerry Koski. Laura Mah. Leigh Miner. Marcella Creison.

Michelle Gurney. Olivia William. Rebecca Guno. Sheila Egan. Sherry Rail.

Stephanie Lane. Taressa Williams. Wendy Crawford. Maria Laliberte. Ruby Hardy.

Elsie Sebastian. Yvonne Boen. Yvonne Abigosis. Elizabeth Chalmers. Lenora Holding.

Verna Littlechief. Marilyn Moore. Teresa Triff. Sheryl Donahue. Wendy Allen.

Richard (Kellie) Little. Sharon Ward. Gloria Fedshyn. Sharon Goselin. Cara Ellis.

Elaine Dumba. Sharon Abraham. Sherry Baker. Mary Lands. Tania Petersen. Danielle Larue.

Lillian O’Dare. Nancy Clark. Jane Doe 1. Jane Doe 2. Jane Doe 3.

Monday’s event was held to coincide with the beginning of the Robert Pickton trial appeals. Both the Crown and the defence are presenting appeals in opposition to the 2007 verdict that found Pickton guilty on six counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Serena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Andrea Josebury, Georgina Papin, Marnie Frey and Brenda Wolfe. The Crown wants Pickton to be convicted of first degree murder on all twenty-six original counts brought against him, while the defense wants a re-trail on second-degree murder charges. Pickton was charged in only six of the twenty-six counts because the judge decided to hear only six cases in the original trial.

Link to the Amnesty Interational Report cited in this article: ‘Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada’
http://www.amnesty.ca/stolensisters/amr2000304.pdf

For more on the murder of Pamela George:
http://www.owjn.org/issues/assault/george.htm

~ www.GlobalPundit.Org Correspondent Jennifer P.

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