Native women 'disappear' in Canada

[Turborama]

Source: Al Jazeera English

On the International Day of the Displaced, activists say fate of hundreds of missing indigenous women must be examined.

Chris Arsenault

As human rights activists around the world marked the International Day of the Disappeared by focusing on Peru, Iraq, Nepal and Mexico, Leslie Spillett sat in her office in Winnipeg, contemplating the fate of more than 500 indigenous women who have disappeared in Canada.

The violence, primarily targeting young women from disadvantaged backgrounds over the past three decades, is "truly appalling" according to Amnesty International and, say human rights groups, has not been properly addressed by security forces in one of the world's richest countries.

When framed purely in numerical terms, the disappearances in Canada pale in comparison to the 15,000 who vanished during Peru's battle with Shining Path fighters in the early 1990s and come nowhere near to the estimated one million who have disappeared in Iraq during 30 years of dictatorship and occupation.

But these facts provide little comfort to the families of the missing women.

"The measurement of what is worse is a pointless question," Jessica Yee, an indigenous youth activist in Ontario province, says. "Do you really brush something off because it is not open war?"

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/quoteofday/2010/08/201083018253280225.html

[liberalhistorian]

1. I live in "Indian Country", on a SD

reservation, and this is big news in the Indian newspapers. You'd never know it, unfortunately, from any of the MSM. It is truly heartbreaking, especially since the Canadian government, like the US government, doesn't appear to give much of a damn about native lives. You really do get a different perspective living as a white person on a reservation!

[entanglement]

2. Canadian police forces (eg RCMP) are notorious for racism and systematic victimization of minorities

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. Participants in the sex trade of all ethnicities disappear...

It is pretty difficult to protect people who willingly drive off to secluded places with sketchy perverts. And yeah... for the people who think Cathouse and Secret Diary of a Call Girl are any sort of reflection on reality, there isn't a place on earth where legalized prostitution has displaced street prostitution where the most vulnerable participants operate. Junkies aren't in very high demand in the segment of the sex trade serviced by call girls and legal brothels.

[lonestarnot]

5. I think there should be male brothels and why do you hate women?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

20. Indeed, I worked with survivors of the sex trade for years out of a hatred of women

[Scuba]

6. That was either a poor attempt at satire or you are whack-job...

... how dare you say that these women were involved in the sex trade?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. try viewing the Canadian news on the subject

Pay particular attention to the Vancouver DTES, where many of these disappearances occurred.

[Crystal Clarity]

7. How do you know that they are participants

in the sex trade "who willingly drive off to secluded areas w/sketchy perverts"?

Yeah, I know you broke your words into 2 sentences rather then one so you could then claim to have never said that. But that rhetorical statement embedded in your words surely appears to be implied...

So therefore I ask...how do you know?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

24. I work in Canada, this is staple news here

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/pickton/missinglives.html

[H2O Man]

9. Clownhouse blews

[Rebubula]

10. Normally....

...I like your posts and feel that you are aware and smart.

However, I would recommend that you re-read this article. Everything that you say is true, just not germane to this story.

[LostinVA]

11. NO woman will "willingly drive off to secluded places with sketchy perverts"

They do it because of desperation.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

22. You don't have to argue that point with me

Read any of my posts on the subject, but protecting people who will by whatever coercive force get in that car is impossible.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. how dare you call them PARTICIPANTS. KIDNAPPED, LIED TO, SOLD BY IMPOVERISHED PARENTS...

those are the reasons these women are disappearing. Some, being irretrievably destroyed stay on in the "trade", but your characterization is....

beyond ignorant.

[superconnected]

18. But if you want to face reality, start reading the articles on the girls that get out,

it's all that and more, often they are threatened with harm to their familys if they leave, but it usually does take the first gesture of going with the guys in the first place - and don't even think I'm blaming the victims, I'm just pointing out the reality of what they usually explain when they break away. It's the system because usually it turns out the human trafficers are known repeat offenders who are simply not in jail.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

25. I consider what I'm talking about to very much be reality. And you're right too, about what happens

if they try to get out. Very very correct.

Some get in or go back because they're aware it is the ONLY way to make money to help family (a movie I saw documented trafficking and some of the women had some very tragic circumstances -- in addition to the original story of how they got conned, lied to or kidnapped into "going with those guys in the first place", as you say) such as one whose poverty prevented any other way to get medical help for a baby brother with cancer.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. the causation here isn't traffiking, it is addiction

Quite often they are alcoholics and drug users who wore out their welcome on the Indian reservation and were dumped in the city. The traffiking of women into Canada does occur but primarily from Mainland China and Vietnam.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

29. being a ruined alchy or druggie doesn't make what the predators do okay.

And law enforcement against traffickers internationally is completely uncoordinated and sub-par.

I'm on mobile right now, otherwise I'd provide some informational links.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

30. Has anybody said otherwise?

I know all about human trafficking, I as a volunteer worked to obtain replacement passports for the victims of human trafficking who were both trying to stay out of immigration detention and fighting with their homelands who didn't particularly want them back and made replacing their papers intensely difficult.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

31. it sounded like you were implying that, tacitly

But I see you have experience that I don't have, so you undertand a side of the problem that obviously, many people know nothing about--me included.

I jumped to conclusions and sounded a little patronizing, I think.

I appologize for that, Sen. Walter Sobchak.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Mind over matter

Some don't mind that others don't matter - in their opinion.

"Truly appalling" according to Amnesty International just about sums it up. :(

[lightningandsnow]

8. Can you imagine if 500 middle-class white women had disappeared?

Truly appalling.

[myrna minx]

12. K&R n/t

[Solly Mack]

13. k/r

[polly7]

14. National call for inquiry into deaths of hundreds of Native women

National call for inquiry into deaths of hundreds of Native women
Series roundup

By Valerie Taliman, Today correspondent
Story Published: Aug 30, 2010
Story Updated: Aug 27, 2010

http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/home/content/National-call-for-inquiry-into-deaths-of-hundreds-of-Native-women-101643603.html

"“The RCMP could have gotten involved much earlier and didn’t. … I had $100 million and 180 staff, so imagine (the Vancouver Police Department’s) frustration with eight people,” said RCMP Inspector Don Adam in the report.


Missing Women Investigation Review
The Pickton case had little chance of being solved without RCMP involvement due to the volume of evidence in its jurisdiction and the likelihood that the killer disposed of bodies in rural locations, LePard said.

The need for a coordinated multi-agency response to missing persons cases, and resolving jurisdictional issues were key points in the report’s lengthy recommendations to provincial governments, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, the RCMP and city officials.

“In every law enforcement jurisdiction in Canada where there are missing women – Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto – we’re putting them on notice to get their act together. They face the same jurisdiction conflicts as they had in Vancouver,” MacDougall said.


"Tonya Gonnella Frichner, an Onondaga attorney and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said Canada must respond to requests from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to document what it has done to improve the situation.

“What we know is that in Canada there’s evidence that there are more than 582 aboriginal women missing and murdered. In the United States homicide is the third leading cause of death for Native women, and one in three will be raped in her lifetime,” she said.

“What we need to know is when it will stop. When will indigenous women of North America enjoy a life expectancy of more than 47 years of age?”

[ensho]

15. its time the Indian men 'manned up'

if cops are part of the problem in investigating the missing women

so nothing much gets done or solved

maybe the missing link is sane, rational Indian men who will not let the missing women down. or their mothers by doing their own investigations

why not

[Quantess]

19. By taking the law into their own hands?

#1 They shouldn't have to, and
#2 Taking the law into ones own hands is often poor advice that backfires.

[ensho]

33. I never said take the law into their own hands

but they sure as hell can gather info, shine lights. share stuff. work together. nag. (having a nag is important)

you know, care about the missing women.

[Lightning Count]

21. With their ample free time when they take a break from smoking the peace pipe?

?

[Quantess]

34. Where did that come from?

Ensho said nor implied nothing of the sort. That was a "when did you stop beating your wife" fallacy.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. when there is no body, no crime scene, no witnesses and no suspects?

In the US barely 60% of homicides are solved, cases similar to these Canadian ones would figure prominently in our unsolved category.

[Posteritatis]

17. Ugh; another feather in the cap of my country's *wonderful* record re: the native population.. (nt)

[Liberal_in_LA]

26. kick. This topic needs to be made public.

[XemaSab]

32. How horrible; I had no idea

:(

[crim son]

35. Awful.

Regarding the "manning up" comment: I have little doubt that if 500 middle-class women had disappeared and the cops were doing nothing about it, the men and women from their communities would be taking matters into their own hands. Why those people associated with the missing women have not is up to speculation. Hopelessness? Hard to say, but the comment isn't entirely misplaced.