[News] Violence Against Indigenous Women Grows in Vancouver Amid ‘Apathy and Injustice’
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Sun Sep 18 16:36:51 EDT 2022
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*Violence Against Indigenous Women Grows in Vancouver Amid ‘Apathy and
Injustice’*
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-amid-apathy-and-injustice-htm/r5sd75/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
*/Indigenous women and girls in Canada continue to face disproportionate
levels of violence and insecurity rooted in colonialism./*
*By Tanupriya Singh*
Violence against Indigenous women is “escalating like never before,”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/cic-calls-on-city-of-vancouver/r5sd78/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) has warned. A series
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/d-in-metro-vancouver-1-6055026/r5sd7c/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
of tragedies have rocked the city of Vancouver (unceded
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/rams-land-acknowledgement-aspx/r5sd7g/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh lands) in recent months,
including the discovery of the body of a 14-year-old Indigenous child,
Noelle O’Soup
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/oelle-osoup-who-vanished-at-13/r5sd7k/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
in May.
“Apathy and injustice prevail among the authorities while the
intersecting crises of MMIWG2S+ [missing and murdered Indigenous women,
girls, Two-Spirit, and others], the colonial child welfare system,
homelessness, and the opioid crisis are literally killing our people,”
said Kukpi7 (Chief) Judy Wilson, UBCIC secretary-treasurer, according
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/cic-calls-on-city-of-vancouver/r5sd78/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
to a press release by the organization.
Noelle O’Soup was found
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-noelle-osoup-family-1-6546297/r5sd7n/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
in an apartment approximately a year after she went missing from a group
home in Port Coquitlam, while under the care of the Ministry of Children
and Family Development (MCFD), British Columbia. Reports on the
circumstances of her disappearance
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-noelle-osoup-family-1-6546297/r5sd7n/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
and the investigation into her death have revealed negligence
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ed-by-vancouver-investigators-/r5sd7r/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
by both the police and the government. “The major investigative
oversight occurred despite multiple visits to, and apparent inspections
of, the single room occupancy unit where Noelle O’Soup’s remains would
finally be discovered,” stated
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ed-by-vancouver-investigators-/r5sd7r/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
Global News. Her case, unfortunately, is more the rule rather than the
exception in Canada.
*An Ongoing Genocide*
In 2019, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
and Girls (NIMMIWG) released its final report
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/final-report-/r5sd7v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
declaring that the violence against Indigenous women, girls, and
2SLGBTQQIA (Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,
questioning, intersex, and asexual) people amounted to “genocide.”
The NIMMIWG emphasized
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/9-06-Final-Report-Vol-1a-1-pdf/r5sd7y/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
that this genocide had been “empowered by colonial structures evidenced
notably by the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/sixties-scoop-/r5sd82/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
residential schools, and breaches of human and Indigenous rights,
leading directly to the current increased rates of violence, death, and
suicide in Indigenous populations.”
The inquiry found
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/9-06-Final-Report-Vol-1a-1-pdf/r5sd7y/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
that “Indigenous women and girls are 12 times more likely to be murdered
or [go] missing than any other women in Canada,” with the figure soaring
to 16 times when compared to white women in the country.
A report
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022001-article-00004-eng-htm/r5sd85/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
by Statistics Canada released in April 2022 stated that 56 percent of
Indigenous women have experienced physical assault, while 46 percent
have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime. Constituting
approximately 5 percent of Canada’s population of women, Indigenous
women accounted for 24 percent of all women homicide victims between
2015 and 2020, according
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022001-article-00004-eng-htm/r5sd85/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
to the Statistics Canada report.
The likelihood of experiencing violence seems to be higher in cases
where Indigenous women live in rural and remote areas, if they have a
disability
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022001-article-00004-eng-htm/r5sd85/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
have experienced homelessness, or have been in government care—81
percent of Indigenous women who have been in the child welfare system
have been physically or sexually assaulted in their lifetime, according
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022001-article-00004-eng-htm/r5sd85/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
to Statistics Canada.
“Across multiple generations, Indigenous peoples were and continue to be
subjected to the detrimental harms of colonialism,” acknowledged
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022001-article-00004-eng-htm/r5sd85/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
the report. Not only are Indigenous children disproportionately
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ng-1541187352297-1541187392851/r5sd88/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
represented in Canada’s child welfare system (52.2 percent), but
advocates have also found
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/s-family-separations-advocate-/r5sd8c/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
that more children have been forcibly separated from their families now
than during the brutal Indian residential schools
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-residential-school-in-canada-/r5sd8g/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
period.
Along with its final report, the NIMMIWG also made a key intervention
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/plementary-Report-Genocide-pdf/r5sd8k/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
in prevailing definitions
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/20the20Crime20of20Genocide-pdf/r5sd8n/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
of genocide, stating
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/plementary-Report-Genocide-pdf/r5sd8k/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
that “In actuality, genocide encompasses a variety of both lethal and
non-lethal acts, including acts of ‘slow death,’ and all of these acts
have very specific impacts on women and girls.”
“This reality must be acknowledged as a precursor to understanding
genocide as a root cause of the violence against Indigenous women and
girls in Canada,” the NIMMIWG added
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/plementary-Report-Genocide-pdf/r5sd8k/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
“[n]ot only because of the genocidal acts that were and still are
perpetrated against them, but also because of all the societal
vulnerabilities it fosters, which leads to deaths and disappearances.”
*‘The Police Don’t Protect Us’*
The remains of Noelle O’Soup were found in Downtown Eastside (DTES), a
neighborhood referred to as “ground zero”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/lly20safe20ways20to-Braley-pdf/r5sd8r/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
for violence against Indigenous women. Residents face disproportionate
levels
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
of “manufactured and enforced violence, poverty, homelessness, child
apprehension, criminalization, and fatal overdoses.”
Approximately 8,000
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/vhuecbf7/r5sd8y/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
women live and work in DTES, where the rates of violence
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-after-recent-violence-in-dtes/r5sd92/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
have been more than double compared to the rest of Vancouver, according
to data provided by the police.
Indigenous women have an acute vulnerability to violence, and yet the
institutional response has been to stigmatize the women in DTES for
having “high-risk lifestyles.”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
“Harmful stereotypes that are perpetuated against Indigenous women are
used as an ongoing tool of colonization to enforce their vulnerability
to violence,” stated Christine Wilson, director of Indigenous Advocacy
at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center (DEWC), in an interview with
Peoples Dispatch.
In 2019, the DEWC published “Red Women Rising,”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
a historic report produced in direct collaboration with 113 Indigenous
survivors of violence and 15 non-Indigenous women in the DTES who knew
Indigenous women who have experienced violence, have gone missing, or
have overdosed. “Red Women Rising” was published in response to the
final report of the NIMMIWG.
Echoing the argument put forth in “Red Women Rising,”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
Wilson reiterated that “the criminal justice system constructs
Indigenous women as ‘risks’ that need to be contained, which leaves them
unsafe and exacerbates inequalities.” Widespread bias
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-CEDAW-C-OP-8-CAN-1-7643-E-pdf/r5sd95/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
within the policing system has not only influenced whether police take
Indigenous women’s complaints seriously, Wilson explained, but also
whether Indigenous women approach the police at all.
“The police don’t protect us; they harass us,” stated DJ Joe, a resident
of DTES, in the report
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
by DEWC. “Native women face so much violence but no one believes a
Native woman when she reports violence.”
In cases involving missing or murdered women, there is a lack of proper
investigation
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/ormans-disappearance-and-death/r5sd98/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
and adequate resources, Wilson stated, adding that family members of
victims were subjected to insensitive and offensive treatment, alongside
general jurisdictional confusion and lack of coordination among the police.
Police have also been actively hostile and abusive
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/igenous-women-saskatchewan-and/r5sd9c/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
toward Indigenous women in Canada. They continue to be targets
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-2022-05-FAFIA-RCMP-REPORT-pdf/r5sd9g/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
of sexual violence by police forces, particularly the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP), which has been deployed on contract policing
services in 600 Indigenous communities.
Lack of police and judicial protection also overlaps with
criminalization
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-women-inmates-are-indigenous-/r5sd9k/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
thereby exacerbating violence against Indigenous women and girls. Wilson
added, “Indigenous women are more likely to be violently attacked by
their abusers and then more likely to be counter-charged by the police,
compared to non-Indigenous women.”
*Colonial Patriarchy Poses the Highest Risk*
As “Red Women Rising” outlined
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
“Settler-colonialism intentionally targets Indigenous women in order to
destroy families, sever the connection to land-based practices and
economies, and devastate relational governance of Indigenous nations.”
The report identified “[m]ultiplying socioeconomic oppressions within
colonialism,” including loss of land, family violence, child
apprehension, and inadequate services, which worked to displace
Indigenous women and children from their home communities.
Forty-two percent of women living on reserves lived in houses requiring
major repairs, according to the report
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>,
and nearly one-third of all on-reserve homes in Canada were food
insecure, with the figure soaring to 90 percent in some areas.
Meanwhile, 64 percent of Indigenous women lived off-reserve, in areas
such as DTES.
Displacement is closely linked to housing insecurity, with all members
of DEWC having experienced homelessness at some point in their lives.
The violence that Indigenous women face is tied to poverty, which in
turn “magnifies vulnerability to abusive relationships, sexual assault,
child apprehension, exploitative work conditions, [and] unsafe housing,”
stated
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
the “Red Women Rising” report.
Not only are Indigenous women disproportionately criminalized
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
for “poverty-related crimes,” but Indigenous families are also
investigated for “poverty-related ‘neglect’” eight times more as
compared to non-Indigenous families. “[H]igher stressors associated with
living in systemic poverty such as drug dependence and participation in
street economies are used against Indigenous women in order to apprehend
Indigenous children, thus perpetuating the colonial cycle of trauma and
impoverishment,” the report pointed out
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>.
As a result, activists argue
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/-Report-Final-March-10-WEB-pdf/r5sd8v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
that what is needed is an “assertion of Indigenous laws and
jurisdiction, and restoration of collective Indigenous women’s rights
and governance,” and “individual support for survivors such as healing
programs.”
“Red Women Rising” had made 200 recommendations to address violence
against Indigenous women. Meanwhile, the NIMMIWG had issued 231 “Calls
for Justice,”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/mmiwg-inquiry-report-1-5158385/r5sd9n/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
stressing that they were legal imperatives, not recommendations.
However, in the three years since the release of both these reports, the
Canadian government has made “little progress.”
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/abc-media-1/r5sd9r/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>
“While there have been crucial acknowledgments on the subject of
violence against Indigenous women,” Wilson told Peoples Dispatch, “now
we need actions. We need funds for reparations, we need housing, and we
need clean water on the reserves.”
/This article was produced in partnership with Peoples Dispatch
<https://go.ind.media/e/546932/2022-09-17/r5sd9v/1148445919?h=_YJ7KPzRoo1QT_ZQUJnjLnS4Ma2UG7NNacrsQK1hKBM>./
/*Tanupriya Singh* is a writer at Peoples Dispatch and is based in Delhi./
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