la canada oculta:
en la tierra de la libertad, y el respeto, varios estados se entrelazan y cubren sus ropas sucias, en todas partes aun persiste un estado colonial, y un estado clandestino, canada no es la excepcion. sino vean este mail que me acaba de llegar sobre la desaparicion de mas de 500 mujeres indigenas en los ultimos 15 años en canada. para muchos este numero es mucho mayor porque no se cuentan los casos que no fueron denunciados. a todas luces es un genocidio, sexicidio y etnocidio como el de ciudad juarez. pero poco se sabe, y nada de nada hace el estado. lean el mail y saquen sus conclusiones. al final hay unos mails que uno puede mandar a traves de amnesty para presionar a los legisladores...
Forward/ from: Terri Thompson
Hi everyone – .
Recently I attended the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Richmond Women’s Resource Centre. One of the speakers at this wonderfully inspiring, yet somewhat disheartening (re: all the cuts to funding such important and needed community organizations) event was a young, pre-law student. She spoke about the 500+ missing / murdered Aboriginal women in Canada . This number represents only those reported cases over the 15 years. She also shared a story about when she was at an event where the then Liberal Minister of Justice was also present. She questioned him about the Department’s intentions and plans to deal with the Missing Aboriginal Women file. His response: “That’s not my file; that’s a Canadian Heritage file.”
After I got over my total and utter dismay that a missing / murdered persons file could be considered anything but a Department of Justice file, let alone a Canadian Heritage file, I decided to approach a friend who has spent many years as a federal civil servant and ask him about it. He was sceptical and suggested I look into it a little further on my own. So I’ve done that, all be it quickly, and here’s what I found:
If you search the Department of Justice Canada web site using the phrase missing aboriginal women you get 0 hits. (See link below)
http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/search/vsearch.asp?SearchIn=general&SearchTerms=missing+aboriginal+women
If you search Canadian Heritage with the same phrase you are directed to the Government’s Human Rights Program under Canadian Heritage. (See link below)
This site appears to be some sort of question and answer page. The answer provided to a question regarding the 500+ missing / murdered Aboriginal women begins like this:
“The Government of Canada recently announced support to the Sisters in Spirit initiative. Providing $5 million to the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) over five years (2005-2010) will enable NWAC to build the capacity necessary to collaborate with the Government of Canada and other Aboriginal (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) women's organizations to undertake a multi-pronged approach to address the issue of violence against Aboriginal women…”
Clearly the Government sees this as a community issue; an issue that many underfunded (or 0 funded) women’s organizations are supposed to solve along with NWAC. And, with the recent funding cuts by the Conservative Government to agencies like Status of Women Canada, I’m not even sure the $5million over 5 years is still a reality. I don’t think I need to state the obvious here, but clearly this is a criminal justice file spanning the entire nation and therefore a Department of Justice file. Government needs to take action and recognize the inherent racism and prejudice of placing this criminal file within Canadian Heritage, and move it into its rightful place under the responsibility of the Department of Justice. Furthermore, Government needs to take ownership of the responsibility of resolving the issue and stop framing it as an “aboriginal issue”.
Amnesty International has initiated a letter writing campaign to bring the 500+ missing / murdered Aboriginal women file to the attention of current MPs. If you so choose, you too can add your name, or write your own letter. If you are troubled/disturbed/angered/saddened/frustrated/concerned by this issue I encourage you to act.
Cheers,
Terri Thompson
Assistant Research Scientist – Team Leader
Candian Council on Learning
1805-701 West Georgia Street
Vancouver , BC V7Y 1C6
Tel.: 604.662.3101 Ext: 310
Fax: 604.662.3168
Voulez-vous en savoir plus? Inscrivez-vous à La voie de l’apprentissage, le bulletin électronique du CCA, à www.ccl-cca.ca .
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