Sharon McIvor continues fight against discrimination of Aboriginal women and descendants
Aboriginal activist takes battle to UN
November 13, 2010 - Postmedia News
An Aboriginal woman has announced she will file a complaint against Canada at the United Nations claiming discrimination under the Indian Act.
B.C. activist Sharon Mc-Ivor said in a statement yesterday that Canada continues to discriminate against Aboriginal women and their descendants when determining eligibility for registration as a status Indian.
McIvor fought a 25-year battle against the federal government to have her children registered as status Indians.
This year, the Department of Indian Affairs moved to amend the act after a B.C. court last year ruled it was unconstitutional to treat women and men differently when it comes to registering as status Indians.
"Versions of the Indian act, going back to the 19th century, have given preference to male Indians as transmitters of status, and to descendants of male Indians. Despite amendments made to the Indian Act when the Charter (of Rights and Freedoms) came into effect in 1985, Aboriginal women are still not treated equally as transmitters of status, and many thousands of descendants of Aboriginal women are denied status as a result," McIvor said.
"I contested this discrimination under the charter. It took 20 years in Canadian courts, and I achieved only partial success. Now I will seek full justice for Aboriginal women under international human rights law. Canada needs to be held to account for its intransigence in refusing to completely eliminate sex discrimination from the Indian Act and for decades of delay."