Justice for MMIWG2S! No more excuses!
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Indigenous women, girls and 2-Spirit people are traditionally sacred as life and care givers. However, they are continuously devalued and the victims of violence.
May 5 and October 4 commemorates National Day of Awareness for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and Sisters in Spirit Day, and United Nations and Canadian inquires have consistently noted these deaths.
Despite this, the victims and their families continue to see no justice, demonstrating the fatal connections of racism, colonization and homophobia.
We know the statistics. Indigenous women make up 16 percent of all female homicide victims, and 11 percent of missing women, yet Indigenous people comprise only 4.3 percent of the population of Canada. We know that 56 percent of Indigenous women have suffered physical assault, and 46 percent have experienced sexual violence. By comparison, about one-third of non-Indigenous women have suffered these assaults in their lifetimes.
These statistics do not give a name or a face to the daughters, granddaughters, sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers and friends – people – human beings – who have experienced this ultimate victimization and the ripple effects to the families and friends who loved them.
Karina Wolfe, missing since 2010.
Teressa Williams, unsolved murder since 1988.
Elsie Sebastian, missing since 1992.
Tammy Pipe, unsolved murder since 1995.
Morgan Harris.
Marcedes Myran.
Rebecca Contois.
Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman)
The last four names above were found in the Winnipeg landfill in 2022. Their perpetrator was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder.
These women and thousands like them are missing or are found murdered over decades. There are too many to name in this article during this epidemic that targets Indigenous women, girls and 2-Spirit people. They aren’t faceless names or numbers on a page. They are women, girls and 2-spirited peoples, targeted because they are Indigenous.
Only two of the 231 Calls for Justice have been completed. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls released the Calls in 2016.
Canada must prioritize these calls. It must work with Indigenous family members and survivors, gender-diverse people, and Indigenous nations and organizations – in particular the Native Women’s Association of Canada – to ensure that the National Action Plan successfully implements as quickly as possible the 231 Calls for Justice.
In 2022, the Native Women’s Association of Canada wrote the following:
“We, at the Native Women’s Association of Canada, want to thank the Commissioners for their work, for these Calls for Justice, and for the finding that the violence that is being perpetrated against us and against our mothers, daughters, sisters, and aunties is, in fact, a genocide.”
In October 2024, I joined a few of my fellow KAIROS staff and representatives from KAIROS member churches at Camp Morgan, located outside the Winnipeg landfill. The trip was emotional on a personal level. I know several women who have gone missing and have been found murdered. Indigenous women have been targeted for decades as another form of genocide. Find out more about Camp Morgan where the fight began in December 2022 to bring awareness to search the Brady Road Landfill in Winnipeg. Indigenous women, girls and 2-Spirit deserve to live without fear – that their lives are in danger every minute of every day.
By Connor Sarazin, KAIROS’ Interim Indigenous Rights Manager
