Category: Canada

Opinion | Canada finally acknowledged the genocide against Indigenous women. It’s time to act.:

 By Courtney Skye     June 4  

Courtney Skye
is Mohawk, Turtle Clan, from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.
She is a research fellow at Yellowhead Institute, a First Nations-led
policy think tank at the Faculty of Arts, Ryerson University.

This
week, family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls
and Two-Spirit people, survivors of violence, community activists and
Indigenous leaders gathered in Ottawa for the release of “Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.”
They were there to acknowledge the inquiry’s work in a collective
ceremony to honor the lives of those who have experienced violence. It
was an demonstration of the love that exists within Indigenous
communities for Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people — and a recognition of the overwhelming levels of violence they have had to endure for generations.

The report,
released Monday, finds that “persistent and deliberate human and
Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind
Canada’s staggering rates of violence.” The inquiry concluded that
Canada has committed a genocide against the Indigenous peoples within
its colonial borders, and is continuing to maintain systems and
structures that result in Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people
experiencing a disproportionate amount of violence.

Even
with a two-year mandate, the inquiry was unable to determine a
definitive number of Indigenous people who are missing or have been
murdered. But Indigenous women were reported to be at least six times more likely to be victims of homicide than non-Indigenous women.

The new report, which consists of more than 1,200 pages, contains hundreds of calls for justice
that methodically address the interrelated ways Canadian and Indigenous
structures, programs and services must change to promote the
substantive equality of Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people.
These calls include establishing a “National Indigenous and Human Rights
Ombudsperson” and a “National Indigenous Human Rights Tribunal,”
developing and implementing a national action plan, and providing
long-term funding for educational programs and violence prevention
campaigns.

The report affirms what Indigenous
people have long understood — that the violence they experience is a
product of settler colonialism. The continuation of the Canadian settler
state requires the destabilization of Indigenous communities — and a
part of this stabilization has involved rampant gender-based violence to
uphold the legitimacy of the settler state’s rule over land and water.

While
settler colonialism impacts Indigenous peoples of all genders, it makes
women, girls and Two-Spirit people especially vulnerable to violence.
In 1924, the Canadian state imposed a government structure within First
Nations communities, removing their traditional leadership. And since 1876, Canada has enforced the Indian Act, which at times forced “Indian” women out of leadership positions
and removed their legal status if they chose to go to university or
marry a non-Indigenous person, or if their fathers chose to enfranchise
them. The sex-based discrimination in the Indian Act is identified as
one of the root causes of violence toward First Nations women in the
report.

Over time, advancements in the rights of Indigenous peoples have resulted in Supreme Court challenges and findings of discrimination
from international bodies. However, Canada has maintained a state
definition of “Status Indians,” defining membership in communities from
outside the norms and traditions of those people, and has yet to fully
eliminate how these structures perpetuate sex-based discrimination.

The
national inquiry report outlines in great detail how the nature of
settler colonialism in Canada has evolved into an insidious and
distinctly Canadian social reality that ignores reports of brutal
murders and missing persons, even as these numbers reached alarming
levels.

The United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples sets a minimum standard for the recognition
of their collective rights and sees improvement in the lives of
Indigenous peoples as contingent upon their ability to exercise
self-determination. Now, the inquiry’s report makes clear that
responding to the calls for justice and undertaking actions to end
violence require restoring Indigenous jurisdiction in ways that
prioritize the safety of Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people.

For
too long, our communities have feared that shedding light on violence
would undermine Indigenous leadership. Communities have viewed crises as
something that must remain hidden in order for Indigenous structures to
be restored, and enduring the violence we experience has been seen as
the cost of nation-building.

The inquiry has
established that violence in Indigenous communities and the ongoing
refusal to recognize Indigenous-led ways of governance reinforce one
another, to the benefit of the settler state. Immediate action on the
calls for justice is needed in order to protect Indigenous women, girls
and Two-Spirit people. We must be able to not only express our
aspirations openly but also confront our challenges and seek our own
solutions to the issues we face, including gender-based violence. As
Indigenous communities continue to assert their sovereignty, the role of
the paternalistic settler state must be limited and clearly defined.

The
release of the final report marks a pivotal moment in the recognition
and advancement of the individual and collective rights of Indigenous
people. As Indigenous people continue to overcome the violence and
trauma instilled in their communities by a settler state, the inquiry insists
“the exclusion of Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA people, Elders,
and children from the exercise of Indigenous self-determination must
end.” Honoring missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and
Two-Spirit people requires it.