Canada's shameful settler colonial position of missing and murdered Aboriginal women
Canada - On Missing Aboriginal Women
September 4, 2013 - by John Bart Gerald
Before its government funding was cut (2010), the Native Women's Association of Canada documented throughout Canada and starting in the 1960's, 582 missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Undocumented and unreported instances are thought to run much higher. In Ontario 70 native women were missing or murdered and of these 90% were mothers, three so far in 2013 [1]; 45% of the cases remain unsolved.
In Canada, of a 100,000 missing persons each year over 90% are found within three weeks, 270 add to the list of long term cases.[2] Awareness of the disproportionate number of native women among the missing and murdered began to enter public consciousness with the discovery of murdered women at the Picton farm near Vancouver, British Columbia in 2002; 33 victims were eventually identified by DNA and a third of these were Aboriginal women.[3] The crime occurred during ten years or more of sex trade workers disappearing from Vancouver, with suggestions of police and systemic collusion. Approximately 50 women missing from 1991 to 2002 were traced to the pig farm's co-owner, Robert Pickton. The Pickton farm, worth millions, was near "Piggy's Palace" (run by Pickton's brother), where parties were hosted. Robert Picton, was convicted of second degree murder of six women , and the courts have protected him from retrial for first degree murder of 20 others.
The ugliness of the Picton murders, the presence of law enforcement and politicians at the lavish parties, the lack of action by Vancouver police and the RCMP at the killings of Downtown Eastside sex workers, tapped into a vein of terror with impunity.
Concurrent crimes with evidence of Aboriginal children preyed on by a protected establishment and clients of a Vancouver club, were ignored and covered over by the media and the courts,[4] encouraging a concept of human rights for members only.
In February 2013, U.S. Human Rights Watch released its report[5] on treatment of Aboriginal women by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia.
The Human Rights Watch report provides evidence of:
- RCMP abuse and sexual abuse of native women in police custody. Some of the evidence could indict police officers for crimes against humanity.
- A failure of law enforcement to protect indigenous women from abuse and crimes.
- Police apathy and inaction in response to aboriginal women's disappearing.
- Lack of aboriginal or civilian recourse to police inaction or wrongdoing, with the implication that the avenues of recourse served to cover the offending officers.
- Instances of law enforcement and judiciary collusion in the abuse, rape and prostitution of aboriginal girls and women. Accounts give a clear impression of a society preying criminally on aboriginals as the price of inclusion in the ruling group.[6]
It's both a police problem and a societal problem with roots in colonial administrative policies which the current federal government maintains. Revelations of the government's former Residential School policies which were clearly genocidal, met with official apologies, atonement, but no change in contemporary policies which disenfranchise both Aboriginals and the land itself. Recently The Canadian Human Rights Museum preparing to open refused to apply the word "genocide" to government Indian policies which showed a clear intention to destroy the native people as a group.[7]
While European conquest and settlement of the Americas falls within parameters of genocide through its result and methods of enforcement, evidence of causative intention or motivation to exterminate Aboriginal peoples was lacking until the specific policies of colonial administrations made genocide a tactic of expansion and control. While laws allowing indigenous rights slowly improved, attitudes implicit in the conquering groups remain psychological controls of both Aboriginal and settlers.
Under pressure from the public and Aboriginal groups, the B.C Missing Women Commission of Inquiry was convened in 2010 , then attacked for lack of accountability, for bias, political indifference, and notable failure to include native groups. The Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) refused to participate, calling for a national inquiry, and if that failed, an international inquiry. Eight other groups withdrew from participation and the inquiry was found wanting by Amnesty International, Assembly of First Nations, the United Nations, and Union of BC Indian chiefs president. Human Rights Watch strongly recommended a national inquiry.
The four volume B.C. Inquiry report strongly criticizes police and a systemic cover up of brutality to women, and in particular to Aboriginal women (there was no data list dedicated to missing and murdered non-Aboriginal women [8]). But police lack of concern for the missing women seemed less a policy against Aboriginals than the inclusion of Aboriginal women in police attitudes toward the poor of European stock. According to a police report in 1998, 75% of the missing women received government checks for social assistance.[9] Neither Police nor Commission of Inquiry found it suspect that the disappearances were saving the State money.
What the Human Rights Watch Report, among others, doesn't say is that the horror of the acts committed against women at Pickton Farm coupled with wealth and political power, allowed its continuation beyond reach of the law.[10] The nugget of fear remains a facet of Canadian right wing controls which empowered Canadians avoid through silence or cooperation, while the victims are consistently poor, Aboriginal or Euro-Canadian. Communities of the Aboriginal victims have the solidarity to protest the murders. Sex trade workers, runaways, the impoverished of the dominant group, are ignored because they are poor, vulnerable, and outside middle class concern. The Aboriginal struggle for rights and justice gives insight to marginalized settler groups.
The disproportionate number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women occurs within a context of :
- Prison population - while aboriginal women comprise 4 % of Canada's population, they comprise 34% of the women in prison, and their number has increased over 86% in the past ten years.[11] Numbers of aboriginal women in Canadian prisons rose by about 90% between 2002 and 2012. The CBC finds the government generally dismissive of the problem.[12]
- Infant mortality - rates are more than twice as high for Aboriginals than Canada's general population, and 4 times higher for Inuit.[13]
- HIV aids infection and deaths - example: on Vancouver Island, while Aboriginal tribe members are 5.8 % of the population, they are 11% cent of the HIV cases.[14]
- Foster care - in 2007-2008 while 8% of the children in British Columbia were aboriginal, 52% of the children in government care were Aboriginal, despite the example of Residential Schools in the treatment of native peoples under government practices. Of the approximately 30,000 children under government care in Canada nearly half are Aboriginal.[15]
- Disease rates - UNICEF Canada noted that from 2002 to 2006 the Inuit TB rate was 90 times the national average.[16] Tuberculosis is eight to ten times more prevalent among all Aboriginals than non-Aboriginals; Hepatitis C rates 6 times, diabetes rates 3 to 5 times.[17]
- Medical testing - from 1942 to 1952 , 1300 severely under-nourished Aboriginals were the unknowing subjects of government nutrition testing.[18] A 2011 study by the Alberta Health Services in Edmonton was seeking aboriginal test subjects for vaccine research.[19] A background in the Government's use of medical, physical and psychological abuse of Aboriginals is available in Kevin Annett's Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada Past and Present.[20]
- Suicide rates - the Aboriginal suicide rate is over double the national average.[21] Among the Inuit it is 6 to 11 times the national average.[22]
Aboriginal suicide rates offered by the Health Canada website (for First Nations and Inuit Health) are twenty years out of date. In Alaska, for young aboriginal males the rate is approximately 9 times their counterparts in the other United States and for aboriginal women 19 times (overall the U.S. aboriginal suicide rate is already 3.5 the U.S. national average).[23]
The Harper government is reluctant to change the status quo. The Native Women's Association of Canada has mounted a campaign for a "National Inquiry into missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada,[24] and received support from the Provincial and Territorial Premiers, the Assembly of First Nations, 133 First Nations tribes in Ontario, among others. The government has permitted a Parliamentary committee to hold hearings on the issue but refuses a national inquiry.[25] The Prime Minister's inability to address issues of Aboriginal rights has become a policy of denial, evident in response to Chief Theresa Spence's hunger strike, the housing of the Attawapiskat, the passage of Bill C-45, the efforts of the Idle No More movement, the de-funding of The National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO). The UN Committee against Torture refused to accept the attempt in Canada's report to evade responsibility for violence against women and particularly Aboriginal women and girls.[26]
The colonial policies are there in Canada's reluctance to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and more complexly in its defeat in 2010 of Bill C-300 which would have made Canadian resource extraction companies abroad more accountable for crimes against the local indigenous peoples internationally. Since 2006 Night's Lantern, a Canadian website focusing on genocide prevention, placed approximately 15 genocide warnings for Aboriginal peoples in Canada.[27]
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (of the Washington based Organization of American States) sent investigators to Canada early in August 2013. Previously the UN's Special Rapporteur on Hunger was sent to Canada to report on Aboriginal access to food and was publicly derided by the government.[28]
The UN Commission on Human rights will send its Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya (U.S.), on October 12 -20, to report on Canada's fidelity to Aboriginal Treaty rights and communities. Prof. Anaya, a graduate of Harvard Law, has taught there as well as university law schools of Iowa, Toronto, Tulsa and New Mexico. Updates on his visit will be available at his website www.unsr.jamesanaya.org.
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Endnotes.
(1) "First Nations women in Ontario at high risk, chiefs say," Ontario chiefs, August 13, 2013, SooToday.com .
(2) Forsaken: the Report of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, the Honourable Wally T. Opal, QC, Nov. 19, 2012, British Columbia. p. 19. Public Safety Canada statistics from 2005.
(3) Forsaken. Vol 1. p. 14.
(4) Kevin Annett. Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust. 2001 [access:< http:// http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/ >]; pp. 91-95.
(5) Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada. 2013. Human Rights Watch.
(6) "Judge Ramsay and the legacy of sexual exploitation in Prince George," Those Who Take Us Away, HRW report, pp. 31-33.
(7) "CMHR rejects 'genocide' for native policies," Mary Agnes Welch, July 26, 2013, Winnipeg Free Press.
(8) Forsaken. Vol 1., p. 7.
(9) Forsaken. Vol.2, p.59.
(10) "Canada's Missing Women Inquiry Faces Renewed Community Boycott," David P. Ball, April 13, 2012; "Indian Country Today. "BC Missing Women Commission of Inquiry," Angela Sterritt, Sept. 26, 2011, The Dominion.
(11) "Canadian justice system failing Aboriginal people," Katerina Tefft, Aug.12,2013, The Manitoban. "Aboriginal women imprisoned in soaring numbers," The Canadian Press, Sept. 27, 2012, CBC.
(12) "Federal response to aboriginal corrections report 'dismissive'," Susana Mas, March 9, 2013, CBC.
(13) Health of Indigenous Children: Health Assessment in Action, eds. Janet Smylie & Paul Adomako. 2009. The Centre for Inner City Health. p.30.
(14) "Aboriginal people hardest hit by HIV in B.C.," Katherine Dedyna & Judith Lavoie, Aug. 9, 2013, Times Colonist.
(15) 'Tragic' number of aboriginal children in foster care stuns even the experts," Michael Woods & Sharon Kirkey, Postmedia News, May 8, 2013, Calgary Herald.
(16) Aboriginal children's health: leaving no child behind; Canadian Supplement to the State of the World's Children, 2009, UNICEF Canada.
(17) "Aboriginal Canadians: By the Numbers," Sharon Kirkey & Jason Fekete (Postmedia News), Jan. 11, 2013, Montreal Gazette.
(18) "Assembly of First Nations passes emergency resolution on nutritional experiments," Bob Weber (The Canadian Press), July 18, 2013, The Globe and Mail.
(19) "Proof of vaccine Experimentation on aboriginal newborns and children in Canada today," Jeremiah Jourdain, Aug. 20, 2011, itccs.org.
(20) Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada Past and Present. 2010, Squamish Territory [access:< http://hiddennolonger.com/ >].
(21) "Suicide among Aboriginal People in Canda," current, Canadian Mental Health Association.
(22) Suicide Among Aboriginal People in Canada. 2007. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
(23) "American Indian Youth in Crisis: Tribes Grapple with Suicide Emergency," Stephanie Woodward, Oct. 10, 2012, Indian Country Today.
(24) Petitions are available at "NWAC Petition - A National Inquiry is needed," Native Women's Association Canada [access:< http://www.nwac.ca/nwac-petition-national-inquiry-needed >].
(25) "Conservatives dismiss call for aboriginal women inquiry despite premiers' backing," The Canadian Press, July 25, 2013, Calgary Herald.
(26) "Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention," June 1, 2013, The United Nations Committee against Torture, 48th session [access:< http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/CAT.C.CAN.CO.6.doc >], #20.
(27) Night's Lantern genocide warnings [access:< http://nightslantern.ca/02.htm#ca >].
(28) "Night's Lantern suppressed news," May 18, 2012 [access:< http://nightslantern.ca/2012bulletin.htm#18mayun >].
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Future unclear for committee
Aboriginal women focus of group
BY MICHAEL WOODS, POSTMEDIA NEWS SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Carolyn Bennett urges the federal government to reform a committee on missing aboriginal women. Photograph by: Fred Chartrand , CP PHOTO
The future of a special committee studying violence against indigenous women is up in the air due to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plans to prorogue Parliament.
The committee was established by a unanimous all-party vote in the House of Commons in February, with a mandate to hold hearings on the disproportionate number of missing and murdered aboriginal women, and to propose solutions to address the root causes of the problems.
Some saw its creation as a government compromise in the face of increasing calls for a national public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, calls that have
gone unheeded.
When Harper prorogues Parliament, the committee will cease to exist. But it could be reconstituted in the new legislative session with the agreement of the House.
However, the Conservative government won't say whether they will allow the committee, which met eight times before Parliament's summer break, to be reconstituted when Parliament returns in the fall.
"We will not speculate on the reconstitution of bills or committees," said Erica Meekes, a spokeswoman for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt. An official in Chief Government Whip John Duncan's office echoed that comment.
More than 600 indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing in the past two decades, according to the Native Women's Association of Canada. Aboriginal women are seven times more likely to die a violent death than non-aboriginal women in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.
Opposition parties and aboriginal groups are calling for the chance to reconstitute the committee so it can continue its study of the issue.
"I think we owe it to the families to do a proper piece of work," said Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Carolyn Bennett. "There are substantial concerns that haven't been even remotely explored yet."
Bennett introduced the motion in February that led to the committee's establishment, and she is a vicechair.
She wrote to Valcourt on Aug. 22 urging the government to reconstitute the committee in the new session with the exact same mandate. She said she hasn't received a response, but believes the committee will be reconstituted.
"I think that the government knows it's got to do something on this file, and even though it's not what we had hoped for in a national public inquiry, I think that they will agree to reconstitute the committee," she said.
The government says it is deeply concerned by the high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women, but it has stopped short of calling for a national inquiry. Instead, it says it has taken practical steps to address the issue, including a family violence prevention program for on-reserve residents, community safety plans and victim services for Aboriginal Peoples.
It also touts new legislation such as the Matrimonial Real Property Act, which it says provides more equitable protection for aboriginal women on reserves.
Even if the committee does return, opposition members are expressing concern that it would be held to its original February reporting deadline. Depending on how late in October Parliament returns, that could leave little time to produce a report of substance.
Bennett has also asked the government to extend the reporting deadline to account for days lost due to prorogation.
In February, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo greeted the committee as a welcome step forward. On Friday, an AFN spokesperson said its work should continue.
The AFN continues to call for a national public inquiry into the matter, and advocate for a national action plan to stop violence against indigenous women and girls. Earlier this summer, provincial and territorial premiers threw their support behind calls for a national inquiry.
NDP aboriginal affairs critic Jean Crowder also said the committee should continue its work. "It does give us an opportunity to continue to have a lens on it, and to continue to pressure the Conservatives to take some action," she said.
However, she and Bennett both expressed concerns about the direction the committee has taken. It has heard from mostly government or organizational witnesses so far, rather than hearing perspectives from families and communities. That's the work they are hoping to do this fall.
"Part of the challenge has been ... that we didn't have a clear sense of what the Conservatives were willing to commit to," Crowder said. "We didn't have a clear statement of intent for the committee. Then we didn't have a work plan. That's not a very effective way to operate."
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The Horrifying Reality Of What's Happening to Canada's First Nation Tribes
The Horrifying Reality Of What's Happening to Canada's First Nation Tribes
© izahorsky
Very rarely do we in North America see glaring evidence of the multi-billion dollar industry that is the international sex trade. It appears in splashes on our news screens in the form of zumba-studio sex rings and documentaries from abroad. But the truth is that it is carried on in our own backyards daily to people whose lives are so often historically invisible.
According to American researcher Christine Stark, for over a decade North American women - Native Canadians of the First Nation clans - have been being bought and sold on board U.S. ships for as little as a bottle of scotch. The First Nations women come from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and have been sold on ships in the harbor at Duluth, Minnesota. The spot is infamous among First Nation women for sex trafficking. Young girls, women and even babies are sold in exchangefor alcohol, money, drugs or even a place to sleep.
Watch a VJ Movement video on the aboriginal sex trade at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvZbWll1I3A
Native American and indigenous Canadian women are particularly vulnerable to the sex trade because of the ongoing poverty in many Native American communities. According to U.S. census reports, and community surveys, American Indian and Alaskan poverty rates are the highest of all other race groups. At 27%, these indigenous groups have a poverty rate over 10% points higher than the national average (around 14%). This staggering poverty level leads to multifarious community and personal issues including substance abuse and homelessness, causing many women to engage in survival sex in exchange for a place to live or money to feed addiction.
While American researchers and Canadian NGOs like the Ontario Native Women's Association (ONWA) are working to find out more about this trade and protect native women and children, this issue should be brought up in the context of the incredible poverty rate among Native Americans. In cities all over the country, Native populations experience poverty rates ranging from 16% (the lowest in Anchorage, Ak.) to over 50% (the highest in Rapid City, S.D.).
These are not just statistics. These numbers make Native American women, teens and children an especially vulnerable population, an issue long neglected, that deserves national attention.
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From http://thesoundofmyheart.weebly.com/resources.html
Reports on violence against Indigenous women
Native Women's Association of Canada: Sisters In Spirit Research
Amnesty International Canada: Stolen Sisters : Discrimination and violence against indigenous women in Canada & No More Stolen Sisters: The need for a comprehensive response to discrimination and violence against Indigenous women in Canada
Amnesty International USA: Maze of Injustice
Human Rights Watch Canada: Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada
Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition: Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota
Lynn Gehl: Sex Discrimination and the Indian Act
#OPThunderBird: Missing or Unsolved Murders of Indigenous Sisters
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Ojibway woman recalls as a child being forced to have sex on ships docked in Thunder Bay
05. SEP, 2013 BY APTN NATIONAL NEWS - By Kenneth Jackson
Already a seasoned sex worker at 12 years-old, Bridget Perrier stands on the shore of Thunder Bay waiting to board "Crazy" Captain Jack's potash ship to service all the men before their next voyage across Lake Superior.
That's the first time Perrier, now 37, remembers going on a ship, and she'd go on many, to have sex with sailors as a child.
She wasn't dragged kicking and screaming, but her "gorilla" pimp would beat her if she didn't, said Perrier in an interview with APTN National News.
"Of course he'd tell me where to go. If I didn't go I'd get beat. If I went and didn't make enough money, I got beat. If I looked like I had a good time, I got beat," said Perrier, now an advocate helping fellow Indigenous women and girls trapped in the sex trade.
News that Indigenous women from Thunder Bay were being used as prostitutes on ships crossing Lake Superior and the Great Lakes broke late last month when a United States researcher claimed to have evidence.
Christine Stark said women were being "sold" on ships traveling from Thunder Bay to Duluth, Minn.
Perrier told APTN she shared her story with Stark.
"There are more girls from Thunder Bay," said Perrier. "I do have a friend who went on a ship with me, but she won't speak to anyone. She won't even talk about it. I don't blame her because I don't think her husband has any idea she has a background."
She said women often get "shamed" into not coming forward.
APTN asked the Ontario Provincial Police if they have any knowledge of women being used as prostitutes on ships.
One high ranking officer said while they haven't heard of any specific claims it wouldn't be a surprise women were in the sex trade business, but the OPP does not believe women have been sold from one pimp to the next on the ships.
Thunder Bay police reportedly don't have any knowledge of it either.
Perrier said she usually went on the boat when docked at harbour. Typically, her pimp wouldn't allow her to be taken across Lake Superior, but she does recall it happening a couple times.
She would stay with family in Duluth. She doesn't remember going any further.
Perrier said she knew going on a ship was like playing Russian Roulette with her life. She would always go on with another girl.
"I remember one night we went on and they had been drinking," she said of one of the times she left harbour on a ship. "I remember it getting really wild and this one guy was showing us the jail cells...I thought 'oh gosh, if something happens this is Lake Superior you can't jump off the boat.'"
She said, as far as she knows, no women went missing or were murdered.
But, quickly adds, it's not like there would have been anyone looking for them.
She said her first time would have been around 1988 and would continue for several years, on and off. She thinks she got on about 15 ships.
The ship sex was seasonal. Every spring thaw brought the sailors, and the pimps with the girls, said Perrier.
Perrier said she was considered high-end because she had "shelf life" due to her young age.
Perrier's story has been widely shared in the media. Her first pimp was a woman who had a daughter the same age. She then was controlled by what she called a "gorilla" pimp, meaning the man would be watching her 24/7.
She left that man, who worked with an accomplice, when she was 16 and went back to Thunder Bay where she met up with someone else in organized crime.
She finally got out of the sex trade when she was 20 years-old.
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Child prostitution victim warns of sex trade on ships
Police, border officials ignore concerns of First Nations women, advocates say
by Jody Porter, CBC News Sep 5, 2013
Bridget Perrier, who worked as a child prostitute in Thunder Bay, Ont., says police need to do more to keep indigenous women safe. (Jody Porter/CBC)
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An Anishinabe woman who worked as a child prostitute in Thunder Bay, Ont., is speaking out after reports from an American researcher saying indigenous women are being sold on ships in Lake Superior.
The researcher, Christine Stark, said her 'exploratory' research includes interviews with First Nations women who say they were trafficked on ships between Thunder Bay and Duluth, Minnesota.
Bridget Perrier recalls working as a prostitute on ships in Lake Superior. She said police need to do more to keep indigenous women safe.
"I'm sure if these ships were bringing in big amounts of drugs [the police] would be on it," the 37-year-old said. "But what about the girls that disappear?"
"First Nations girls are targeted and that's my biggest concern is that there are bull's eyes put on them and no one is doing anything," she added.
More than a decade ago, she worked as a prostitute on about 20 different ships at Thunder Bay's port, the first time at the age of 12, she said.
Sailors often had limited time when they were allowed off their vessels, so they'd come to the bars and pick up groups of girls to take back to their quarters, Perrier said.
"I remember going on the ship and I had a bad feeling," she said. "And I remember the one guy taking me and showing me they had jail cells in the boat and I thought, 'Oh God, this is it. Who is going to look for me?'"
"And then he made the comment about Lake Superior being so deep and cold that they would never find one of them," she added. "And at that point I knew we were in trouble."
Didn't disclose her identity
The ship left the Thunder Bay port and ended up in Minnesota. She was able to make her way back home, but she said many others never did.
"I never disclosed that I was First Nations when I did sex work," she said. "Because First Nations girls get paid less, and I didn't want to get hurt."
She dyed her hair blonde and her fair skin allowed her to pass.
Now, working as a counsellor and advocate, Perrier said sex trade workers in Thunder Bay have told her the so-called 'ship parties' are still going on.
But police on both sides of the border deny that. Thunder Bay police say they are unaware of any prostitution at the ports in that city. The Duluth Police Department is skeptical that it's possible to smuggle women off ships in America.
"Ever since 9/11, our ports have been tighter and tighter," said Duluth police Sgt. Jeremiah Graves. "I can look over the hill and see the ships out in the bay, they're not parked at the docks like they used to be."
Graves said he's looking into Christine Stark's research on sex trafficking and believes they refer to historical accounts.
The chair of indigenous governance at Ryerson University in Toronto says it's time officials find out for sure. Pam Palmater said a full inquiry into the trafficking of indigenous women in North America is urgently needed.
The Native Women's Association has documented the cases of 600 missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada in the past 30 years. Some of them may have disappeared on a ship into the United States. But no one knows for sure because no formal investigations have been done, Palmater said.
"The fact that you have murdered and missing women in this country and a real lack of response from the police, what kind of indirect message does that send to Canadians?" she asked."That they're [indigenous women] not worthy, they're not worthy of protection."
The federal government said it is addressing concerns about the trafficking of First Nations women. Public Safety Canada is launching an awareness campaign in partnership with the National Association of Friendship Centers later this fall.
Palmater said that's not enough, but it's up to non-aboriginal Canadians to create change.
"Politicians and government expect First Nations to be concerned about this and to advocate on their own behalf," she said. "But when non-First Nations people say this is a massive injustice and we wouldn't want this happening to our kids, politicians are more likely to listen."